


to the night

by deuteroscopies



Series: the prophet and the king [17]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Breeding, Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, Dominance, Flashbacks, Headspace, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Memory Magic, Possessive Sex, Rough Sex, Sexual Violence, Submission, Underage Prostitution, Underage Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:13:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21704272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deuteroscopies/pseuds/deuteroscopies
Summary: Martin Adjaye has made his demands. He wants three memories of Freddie's, and so Freddie's had to use a magic artifact to go back to those memories, re-live them, and contain them to be handed over to the vampire. He takes Ephram to the Reeperbahn, one terrible night, when he was sixteen and selling his body to survive. Ephram bears witness ... and comes away from it conflicted.
Relationships: Freddie Watts/Ephram Pettaline
Series: the prophet and the king [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551673





	to the night

**Author's Note:**

> > Freddie Watts = Tom Hardy FC, Ephram Pettaline = Boyd Holbrook FC. These stories are set in the supernatural town of Soapberry Springs, in the Pacific Northwest. Freddie is a fairy con man from London, with cobalt-coloured dragonfly wings and silver fairy dust, who has a Japanese Chin familiar named Oliver; Ephram is a witch from impoverished East Kentucky who shares his body with a demon called Anaxis and has green magic of his own.
>> 
>> [the prophet and the king 'verse tumblr](http://theprophetandtheking.tumblr.com/)   
> 

[TXT] Ephram, love - it’s Freddie, not Iann. Will you do something for me please, sweetheart? It’s important.  
  
[TXT] Will you go to my room at the Danforth and fetch Ollie for me? Bring him home? And tell him I’m alright. That you’ve spoken to me, and I’m fine.  
  
[TXT] Today… went a bit wrong. And he’ll be going spare in there on his own.  
  
Ephram’s blood chilled as he read the last text. Already on the move to head to the Danforth, he texted back:  
  
TXT: I’m going to get the little prince now. And keep him with me till you’re home. You are coming home, right? If things went wrong you shouldn’t be by yourself, baby. Being with Cardero don’t count  
  
Freddie felt his heart ache at the thought of home, and how badly he wanted to be there - but then he caught sight of the still raw-looking puncture wounds in his wrist, and he sighed.  
  
 _Tomorrow_ , he reminded himself. He could see his darling tomorrow. When - hopefully - he’d be a little less likely to fall to pieces at the sight of him.  
  
[TXT] I can’t, love. Not yet. I’m not really in any fit state to move at the moment. But Iann’s taking care of me; I promise. And tomorrow, when I’m better, I’ll come home and stay for a few days.  
  
[TXT] I want your arms around me more than I think I’ve ever wanted anything.  
  
ephram TXT: He fuckin better fuckin be taking care of you. I’m not gonna let you out of my arms until I absolutely have to. I don’t care what kind of horror you think you look or act like neither. I’ll keep saying it until you never question it, Freddie: I love every goddamn aspect of you, even the stuff that’s hard to bear. Even the stuff that hurts.  
  
TXT: Okay?  
  
Freddie smiled softly down at Iann’s phone; almost able to hear Ephram’s voice. The protective ferocity there.  
  
[TXT] He is, love. I’d never have managed without him. And since I’ve done nothing but endanger his life, that’s quite something. Iann’s a very good friend.  
  
His husband’s texts that followed though, brought tears to the fairy’s eyes again.  
  
[TXT] Okay. I love you too, Ephram. More than I know how to tell you.  
  
Freddie took a deep breath, and let it out slowly; trying to calm down so that he could explain better. So that he could make Ephram understand.  
  
But it took a good solid five minutes to manage it.  
  
[TXT] It’s just- …he drained me, sweetheart. I barely look alive.  
  
The fairy didn’t mention the cigar burn. That much he’d rather never have to tell at all.  
  
Ephram was grateful for the opportunity to keep telling Freddie how he felt, and simultaneously sorrowful that Freddie had been so deprived of something as elemental to Ephram as loyalty and love.  
He didn’t fret over the lapse in replies, but when Freddie’s next message pinged in, Ephram stared at the screen, turning a livid white around the nose and only realizing how hard he was gripping his phone when it started shaking.  
  
TXT: Freddie, please, baby let me come get you I won’t freak out I just need you with me, I can’t stand the thought of you being hurt and being away from me  
  
TXT: When we was sixteen I promised you I’d always be your home, so come home, Freddie, _come home_  
  
And as much as he wanted to be strong enough to hold his ground, to stay with Iann tonight and spare Ephram the shock of having to see him still so broken in so many ways, Freddie couldn’t do it. He wanted Ephram too badly. Wanted his arms, and his comfort. He wanted desperately to be held again by someone who loved him - well aware that he might only have seven more days before he never had the opportunity again.  
  
So, wiping at his eyes, the fairy sent back his reply.  
  
[TXT] Alright, darling. If you’re sure.  
  
[TXT] Take me home.  
  
Ephram scooped Ollie up to place the little dog on the bed – he seemed equal parts frantic and listless, somehow – and crouched next to it so they were eye-to-eye. “I’m sorry you got left here,” Ephram said, reaching to put his fingers atop Ollie’s paws. “I’m sure you know what Freddie’s been going through. But this is him.” Ephram held up his phone. “He said to tell you he talked to me, and that he’s doing okay, he’ll be fine.” Ollie’s doleful eyes stared back, and Ephram said, “It’ll all be fine. We’ll be fine.”  
  
Given the option to walk or be carried, Ollie let Ephram bear him down to the truck with great dignity, sitting right up against the witch’s hip as they drove to Mal Ojo. Peering up at the apartment above the shop as if he’d see Freddie’s silhouette in a window, Ephram texted him.  
  
TXT: Come down, we’re here. And anxious to see you.  
  
[freddie TXT] It’ll be a minute. I’m not moving terribly quickly right now. But I’m anxious to see you both too.  
  
In truth, of course, ‘ _not moving terribly quickly_ ’ was a bit of an understatement. Freddie was still largely unsteady on his feet and reliant on Iann and the railing both, to get him down the stairs; still clad in his borrowed plaid pyjamas, and a slightly ill-fitting jacket of Iann’s, his own coat having never made it out of Suky Toddry’s estate.  
  
But that was hardly the biggest sacrifice of the day.  
  
Freddie and Iann made their way to the door, the fairy peering out until he noticed his husband’s truck, and then he summoned what little strength he possessed, said goodbye to Iann - with the proviso that one or the other of them would be in touch the following day - and stepped outside. He’d assured his friend, who was still watching from inside the shop, that he could walk the six feet between Mal Ojo’s door and Ephram’s passenger seat unassisted-  
  
And now all he could do was hope that he’d been telling the truth.  
  
Freddie didn’t have to wonder long whether or not he’d make it to the truck. Once Ephram caught sight of his fairy there was no way he could keep away; he practically flung himself out of the pickup and loped over to Freddie, long legs eating up the distance like it was nothing.  
  
“Oh, honey,” Ephram mumbled, sweeping Freddie into his arms and kissing him, gently at first and then deep and long. As Freddie’s mouth warmed against his, Ephram felt the easing of an anxiety he hadn’t realized was consuming him. “I’m never letting you leave again,” Ephram said firmly. “I don’t care how necessary you think it is. You ain’t going nowhere.” Walking Freddie backwards towards the truck (which didn’t involve Freddie walking so much as his toes dragging the ground), Ephram bundled his husband into the passenger seat as Ollie glued himself to Freddie. Words stopped working after that, and Ephram slung one arm around Freddie’s chest, barrelling his head fiercely against his fairy’s shoulder to try and convey the depth of his emotion.  
  
As soon as he saw Ephram, Freddie felt himself start to crumble; and by the time he’d been swept up into Ephram’s arms and kissed, his eyes were already wet and his chest was tight. And he hated that he was going to have to undermine his husband’s resolve to keep him close.  
  
But Martin wanted Freddie and Iann back in a week, or he’d find Iann and kill him. No discussion; no negotiation - Freddie returned, or Iann would die. Simple as.  
  
Which meant that the fairy would have to go. Whether he wanted to or not.  
  
And what would happen after that, whether he’d really have any choice about staying… well, that remained to be seen.  
  
That was something they could talk about later, though. Something that would _have_ to be talked about later. But not now. Right now all Freddie could manage to do was cling to the man he loved and struggle not to break down into inconsolable sobs of gratitude at just being able to touch him again.  
  
Ephram mostly carried Freddie back to the truck - the fairy gritting his teeth, and hiding his face in Ephram’s neck as his witch’s grip on him tugged at the skin on his back, disturbing his burn - and then he carefully situated him in the passenger seat; gently touching Freddie’s face, and murmuring words of love and reassurance. Promising that Freddie could never be a danger or a burden - though the fairy knew that that was precisely what he’d already become.  
  
And when Ephram had closed the door again, making his way around to his own side of the truck, Ollie climbed immediately into Freddie’s lap, and got up on his hind legs, pushing his face against his fairy’s cheek. Insistent and unswayable; exactly the way he’d done since they were small, whenever Freddie needed comfort. It was the only way that the fairy had heard ‘ _I love you_ ’ for nearly all of his life.  
  
“I love you too, mate,” Freddie said thickly, leaning into the gentle pressure of the little furry face and wet nose, his hands resting on Oliver’s back, petting him softly. “And I’m alright; I promise. It’s not good… but it’s been worse. I’m alright…”  
  
Ollie lifted his head to study Freddie’s face, licked him once, and then settled down in his lap, curled up tight; though Freddie knew he wouldn’t sleep.  
  
His familiar would just keep watch now, not trusting anyone else to do the job properly. Prepared to stand between Freddie and whatever was hiding in the dark.  
  
But when Ephram got into the truck - doing his best to express to Freddie the depth and the meaning of what they had together, what they shared, their love for each other; pulling the fairy close and holding him tightly - Freddie knew that Ollie would approve of his husband’s efforts to try to do the same.  
  
And Freddie just hung on, feeling weak in all the ways it was possible; doing his best not to fall completely apart.  
  
\---  
  
The rest of the evening passed in a haze, the three of them falling deeply asleep without being able to do or say much else – and even when they woke up, being apart for more than a few moments felt like far too much time apart.   
  
After all, Ephram thought blearily as he was washing his hands in the bathroom after a piss, any time could be the last time.  
  
Freddie stepped into the master bathroom with the intention of having a shower, but his mind was on other things - there was too much to think about lately; too much to plan for and tie up; too much to try not to think about - and he was slightly taken aback when he saw Ephram at the sink, somehow having lost track of his husband’s whereabouts in the house.  
  
“I’m sorry, darling,” he said, “I didn’t realize you were in here. You finish up, yeah?”  
  
The fairy turned to go, then paused, finally turning back and stepping closer, pressing a kiss to Ephram’s shoulder, and smiling softly at him in the mirror. “Though maybe I’ll just hang about and watch, eh? I’ve missed just getting to look at you.”  
  
Since coming home, Freddie hadn’t said much of anything about what had happened after he and Iann had been taken from the glade - unwilling to revisit any of it; to willingly allow it to share space in their bed. And he’d been almost equally quiet about Martin’s directive - despite the roles his darlings would have to play in its execution.  
  
He’d been a coward. And worse still - he’d been wasting time. Iann would be hugely disappointed in him.  
  
But as he stood there, watching Ephram in the bathroom mirror, soothing himself with the familiarity of the man that he loved, Freddie knew that he couldn’t afford to put it off any longer. There were things that needed to be discussed.  
  
Things that needed to be faced.  
  
“Actually…” Freddie said quietly, “-I think this can't wait. I…” He trailed off, sadness in his eyes as they met Ephram’s in the glass. “I need to talk to you, sweetheart. About what’s happened. And what’s going to happen. I need to ask you to do something for me…”  
  
“Can we go back in the bedroom and sit down? You’re likely going to have some questions.”  
  
Ephram felt a chill go through him as he finished wiping his hands and met Freddie’s eyes in the mirror. Dropping the towel in the sink, Ephram took Freddie’s hand, kissing the side of his head and leading his husband back to the bedroom so they could sit on the bed. “Tell me,” he said, not letting go of Freddie’s hand. “Tell me what you need me to do and I’ll do it, whether or not I got questions.”  
  
Freddie stared down at the way Ephram held his hand, letting himself believe for a moment that he could still feel the lingering press of his witch’s kiss on his temple, and said simply, his voice soft, “I don’t _want_ you to do it. I’d give anything if you didn’t have to.”  
  
He lifted his head to meet Ephram’s eyes. “But it can only be someone who loves me. And people who love me are in very short supply.”  
  
“Which is the point, I think…” he sighed, before realizing that not only had he looked away again, but he wasn’t being very clear. Squaring his shoulders, the fairy forced himself to do better; to hold Ephram’s gaze. “I’m sorry, darling,” he murmured, “I’m so scattered anymore. Forgive me.” He took a deep breath, and soldiered on. “Martin wants me to give him three of my memories - literally. He’s given me three boxes - Trappers, they’re called; I don’t know if you’ve heard of them - and I’m to isolate three memories, very good ones or very bad ones, and collect them for him - but I can’t go on my own. I need a companion - someone who cares for me; loves me - to be there in case… well, in case I can’t find my way out again.”  
  
Freddie offered his husband a small rueful smile. “Iann likened it to Virgil leading Dante through Hell. Which is likely more apt than he realized at the time.”  
  
“Martin’s given me a week to do it; to bring the Trappers with the memories back to him - and if I don’t, if Iann and I don’t turn up, Martin will kill him. So I haven’t got any choice.” Freddie squeezed Ephram’s hand. “I’ve already chosen the memories though - Iann told me I should write them out beforehand, so I have - and then, when it’s done… they’re gone. I’ll forget any of it ever happened at all.” He forced another small smile. “Which is the only thing I’m looking forward to about the whole thing.”  
  
The fairy sighed again. “But I don’t know what he wants them for - unless it’s just to torture me, which is a distinct possibility. All I know is that he’ll have them; and if I’m lucky, that will be enough - he’ll spare Iann, and let me go.” Freddie looked at Ephram almost like it hurt him to do it. “But more than anything I wish you wouldn’t have to see it.”  
  
“I’m sorry, darling,” he said in low voice, finally allowing himself the small mercy of looking away and staring down at the floor, “For all of this. Bringing him here.”  
  
“I should have known better than to think this was something I could have. I was being selfish, and I’m sorry.”  
  
“Shhhhhh, shhhhhh, don’t be sorry, my darlin' Freddie….” Ephram wrapped his arms around his fairy, rubbing at the tense muscles he could feel there. “I’m grateful you’re letting me in on this, to have the chance to help you. I mean you’re my husband, ain’t you? So this is part of it.”  
  
Ephram kissed Freddie’s head again, his temple and his ear, letting Freddie look down if it made him feel better. “I brought my troubles to your door and more’n that, onto your flesh–” he squeezed Freddie’s demon-marked hand, “–and you never once flinched from it. Awright? So you don’t gotta lower your eyes with me, not ever.” One more kiss and then Ephram sat back a little, just so they could look at each other.  
  
“As it so happens,” Ephram said, “I’m familiar with Trappers. Or at least the general idea of em. Whatever it is you got to show me, I can handle.” Ephram wanted nothing more than to gather Freddie up and kiss him, pet him, fuck him until they were both too sated and sleepy to worry about anything at all. Till Freddie had no more of those thoughts in his head, of being selfish or undeserving or too much trouble to bother with, and sank gently into the truth that he’d become an infinitely important part of their lives.  
  
Freddie took a deep breath and nodded when Ephram told him not to apologize, realizing belatedly that no matter what he said, his husband wasn’t likely to see things his way, and it was useless to try to convince him.  
  
Through part of Freddie wanted to give it his best effort. Wanted his witch to understand that Martin wasn’t the same as Anaxis. He wasn’t some unavoidable horror that Freddie had been cursed with, like Ephram had been with the demon - Martin was a monster that Freddie had _courted_. A nightmare of Freddie’s own making. And the fact that he couldn’t be contained; that he spilled out to corrupt the rest of the fairy’s life whether it went anywhere near him or not, was a perfectly good reason for Ephram to wish he’d never laid eyes on Freddie at all.  
  
But Ephram - his Sheriff; his white knight - wouldn’t agree. _Didn’t_ agree. And there wasn’t anything to be done to change his mind.  
  
And Freddie loved him desperately for it. Issues of his own lack of merit notwithstanding. It just wasn’t an argument they had the time for anymore.  
  
The fairy was relieved to hear that Ephram had at least a passing familiarity with the concept of the Trappers and what they could do - he wasn’t sure his own understanding was enough that he’d have been able to explain any better than he already had - but his stomach still roiled to hear Ephram say that whatever he needed to witness, he could handle it. That it didn’t scare him.  
  
Because Freddie believed that was true - Ephram wouldn’t crumble at the sight of ugliness; he’d been through worse in his life than whatever the pain of a second-hand memory could inflict - but there was no guarantee, in Freddie’s mind, at least, that what Ephram saw wouldn’t intrinsically change the way he looked at him. It was one thing to know, intellectually, an awful truth - it was something else entirely to see it play out in front of you.  
  
And if Freddie was going to lose Ephram altogether - if Martin had rigged the game beyond even what could already be anticipated - he couldn’t bear the idea that the last thing he might see in his witch’s eyes would be pity. Or disgust.  
  
His heart would never knit itself back together again.  
  
“Well, that’s good then,” Freddie said, looking up again, having schooled his face into something as blandly calm as he could manage, “If you already know, then we’re a bit ahead of the curve. I…” he started, and then he sighed, at a loss. Freddie scrubbed a hand over his face and took a deep breath, gathering all his resolve and sitting up a little straighter. “Alright,” he said, “Enough of that, yeah? Time’s running out while I sit here moaning and wringing my hands, and everyone has lives to get on with.”  
  
He leaned closer and kissed Ephram suddenly, cupping his husband’s face in his hands and lingering over each movement of his lips and swipe of his tongue, wanting to make it last before finally letting him go again. “Is it too much to ask to do it now?” he said softly, “Before I lose my nerve again?”  
  
Freddie was right about how Ephram’s mind worked; in his estimation, there wasn’t much difference between the monsters who’d claimed them in their vulnerable youths, and Freddie’s unwillingness or inability to accept that he’d been a victim rather than a willing participant matched Ephram’s stubborn refusal to see Freddie as being at fault. Mirroring his husband, Ephram sat up straighter on the bed.  
  
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”  
  
It wasn’t the function of the Trappers themselves that Ephram was steeling himself to endure. It was watching Freddie be subjected to painful, brutal abuse, being told that he’d asked for it and he deserved to be treated that way. And the knowing that his precious fairy, his darling, his love, would learn those lessons so deep they’d be etched on his psyche for the rest of his life.  
  
Ephram would never say that his time in prison had been easier or harder than what Freddie’d endured – the sexual abuse they’d both faced wasn’t the kind of thing you could compare – but getting gang raped, used as currency, beaten to shit? That was a lot more easy to see as victimization. A boy painted as a pricktease by his goddamn predatory teachers, who then went on to sell himself for sex and rob his clients when he could - that was a whole different story, in the judging eyes of society. Nobody had been there to help Freddie see himself as anything other than the seductive, willing whore who brought his own troubles on himself.  
  
And that was something that Ephram had sworn to himself he would remedy, if it took him the rest of his life. “I’ll be with you every step of the way, honey,” he said, squeezing Freddie’s hand. “Don’t you worry none about being left to deal with it alone.”  
  
Freddie offered the suggestion of a smile when Ephram agreed to venture into Freddie’s memory now - no hesitation; no fear - simply because the fairy had asked him to, promising that at no point would Freddie be alone in the dark. “Thank-you, darling,” and then released him; standing up to retrieve the Trappers from where he’d left them in the large pockets of Iann’s borrowed jacket.  
  
Setting the two as-yet-unnecessary boxes on the dresser, Freddie returned to the bed and climbed back up on it, laying down, and entreating Ephram to do the same, as he leaned over to pull a few sheets of paper from one of the bedside table drawers. “Apparently,” he said, as he folded the pages in half and handed them to his witch, “-all I’ve got to do is focus on the memory, and then, when I’ve got it fixed firmly in my mind, I open the box and it does the rest. We’ll fall into the memory, and either I’ll relive it, or you and I will watch it unfold together.”  
  
A vague look of apprehensive nausea passed across Freddie’s face, and he forced a weak sickly smile as he looked up into his husband’s eyes. “I’m not sure which I hope it’ll be…”  
  
The fairy gestured at the papers he’d handed over. “That’s my synopsis of what happened though,” he said, “Iann told me I should write it out beforehand, seeing as once the Trapper’s done it’s work, I won’t remember it anymore. So when we’re done, you can check what you saw against what I wrote down - and then just… put it somewhere, yeah? Somewhere I won’t accidentally stumble across it again. Once this is all out of my head, I never want to have it put back again.”  
  
Freddie shifted a little against his pillows, trying to get as comfortable as he could, and then reached for Ephram’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Iann also says you need to be touching me,” he explained, “In order to pull me back out of the memory again if I seem to be getting lost in it…” He swallowed hard, and then fixed Ephram with a serious look. “You just have to remember, love, when you see it… that I’m alright. It happened, but I carried on.”  
  
“I put it away so it couldn’t hurt me anymore.”  
  
Accepting the sheets of paper, Ephram tucked them folded-over into the waistband of his pyjama pants as he listened to Freddie explain. The trepidation was clear in his fairy’s voice, and selfishly, Ephram was glad that he was the first one in to run this gauntlet with Freddie – the other two boxes sitting on the dresser, waiting for Ruby and Elizabeth. He was sure that they would acquit themselves well, it wasn’t that, it was just that … Ephram had met Freddie first, fallen in love with him first, and the horror that was Anaxis had been visited on Freddie so early in their relationship. And yet here they were, because Freddie had somehow understood the ordeal of the demon more comprehensively than anybody else ever had.  
  
Ephram fully intended to provide the same oasis of safety and support that Freddie had been for him. Or at least try his damndest to.  
  
He was startled out of this resolution when Freddie told him, lowly and earnestly, to keep in mind that this was all in the past. That Freddie had gotten through it, and survived, and that once the memory had been re-lived it was then Ephram’s to hold. A wave of energy passed through them both as Freddie took Ephram’s hand, their fairy and witch magic doing that swirl that neither of them had seen coming, and Ephram nodded, a lump in his throat. “I’ll remember,” he said, a little choked. Even now, Freddie was trying to look out for him, when the fairy himself was just about to relive something traumatic and terrible. Ephram couldn’t have loved Freddie more fiercely than he did right now.

Freddie was quiet for a moment, then gave himself a little internal shake. “But anyway-” he said, “-let’s just get on with it. Now or never.”  
  
The fairy closed his eyes, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, thinking about a cold December night in Hamburg…  
  
And then he opened the box.  
  
—–  
  
When he’d opened his eyes again, the overwhelming sensation of dizziness and vertigo - the feeling of falling from a great height - that had gripped him when he’d opened the lid of the Trapper slowly ebbing away, he and Ephram were stood in the middle of Talstrasse - directly across the street from where Freddie’s sixteen year old self was standing with two other boys; watching the passers-by, and doing his best to look more seductive than cold.  
  
His t-shirt and jeans might as well have been painted on - quite a bit of skin was showing through a number of artfully shredded holes in both - and the denim jacket he was wearing over top did absolutely nothing, Freddie remembered, to cut the chill.  
  
At the time though, it had been a necessary concession. And really, he’d always tended to spend more time indoors than out, anyway. Often to the aggravation of the other boys working. He’d been a popular pick-up almost from his first night, as a matter of fact. And at this point in his fledgling career, Freddie had already managed to carve out a little collection of regulars.  
  
Two of which, the fairy remembered as he watched himself chit-chat with the other boys and flirtatiously smile at the punters on the street, had already fucked him tonight.  
  
He actually had quite a nice wad of marks tucked into his sock by this point in the evening, grown-Freddie knew - and if he’d just been satisfied with that, if he’d just known enough to call it a night and go home, he and Ephram wouldn’t be stood here now. This night would be no more significant than a hundred others just like it. It would have been forgettable.  
  
But he hadn’t been satisfied. He hadn’t gone home. And that was something Freddie had long since come to accept.  
  
He’d made his bed all on his own - and then he’d been forced to lie in it.  
  
The Reeperbahn crowd moved around Freddie and Ephram without acknowledging them - without seeing them at all - and the fairy glanced up at his husband, trying not to let the full scope of his trepidation show in his face. “Is there anything you’d like to ask me, love?” he said softly, “Before we move closer?”  
  
He looked back across the street at his teenage self, watching as the boy he had been approached a Mercedes that had just pulled up, leaning into the window to speak to the driver - while at the same time showing off his assets to the sidewalk.  
  
“Because if memory serves, when this Mercedes drives off, my next job won’t be far behind - and then we’ve got a bit of walk ahead of us.”  
  
Screwing his eyes shut tight, Ephram had breathed in and waited–  
  
–and the smell had hit him first, before he opened his eyes. It was entirely foreign, nothing like the handful of places he’d been on the east coast of the States; there was a coppery dampness that made the sides of his tongue tingle and water. And when he did open his eyes, there was Freddie in this strange place, like he belonged to all the red lights and indecipherable language without any question (and Ephram felt a spurt of jealous resentment about it, that Freddie should belong anywhere but with _him_ ; an illogical, but undeniable feeling). All of sixteen, heartrendingly young and beautiful in the lingering softness of childhood, his body displayed so skillfully for purchase that Ephram felt himself start to shake in mingled anger and sorrow.  
  
He pulled himself together fast. They both needed to keep it together for this.  
  
Looking down when Freddie asked if he had any questions, Ephram pressed a quick kiss to Freddie’s temple. “Did you always go with em?” he asked. “To wherever they wanted to take you? Or did you have someplace set up that was safe?” He almost knew the answer as he was asking, but Ephram didn’t want to take anything for granted. This wasn’t a euphemistic Hollywood version of child prostitution, but it also wouldn’t be as straightforward as nonstop misery and helplessness. Nothing about his darling was ever that simple.  
  
Freddie smiled softly and sadly as Ephram kissed his temple, closing his eyes for a moment to fully appreciate the gentle touch before answering his husband’s question. “I did; yeah,” he said, “Only not quite like you’re thinking, love.”  
  
“Because I didn’t want to take them back to mine - Ollie and I had a little place not far from here - but I didn’t really care to muck about in alleys and cars either.”  
  
“And it was just too much bother to keep a room rented, going back and forth from the street. The commute, as it were, ate up too much time. I mean, if one of my regulars wanted to keep me for the night, and get a room, that was fine - they paid through the nose for it - but as far as a bog-standard evening went, I sorted out a better idea fairly early on.”  
  
Freddie took Ephram’s hand and led him across the street, stopping them just short of where his younger self had finally dispatched the driver of the Mercedes. “That one,” he explained, gesturing at the car as it pulled away, “-came back the next night - once he’d worked up the nerve to really pull the trigger - and I saw him at least once a week after that, until I left for Amsterdam. His name was Georg. Doctor, late fifties, married. He was a sweetheart, really. Brought me presents, could always be talked into giving me a little something extra.” The fairy smirked. “Though I did still nick his credit cards the last time I saw him.”  
  
“Georg was my favourite sort of punter,” he went on, drifting a bit, almost talking to himself more than Ephram, “Oodles of cash, and a hair trigger. All he wanted me to do was wank for him, and let him lick my spunk up off my belly. Easy money, every time.”  
  
He watched his teenage self laugh at something one of the other boys had said - Lennart, Freddie thought his name was, though there was a chance he’d confused him for Mads; the two of them having always looked oddly alike - then he glanced up at his husband again. “I’m sorry, darling,” he murmured, “I got caught up there for a moment. But I still haven’t answered your question though, have I?” He let out a strained sounding chuckle. “This is stranger than I thought it would be.”  
  
“We were talking about after they picked me up, yeah?”  
  
Freddie gestured up the street. “I used to get them to take me to this place called Erotixx, just a few blocks from here; down that way. That’s where we’ll be going tonight, actually. It’s a combination sex-kino slash shop slash club sort of a thing with private cabins. Just like what you’d expect - painted red and lit up the same way, with slings, and glory holes, and the odd St. Andrews cross. Sordidness as far as the eye can see.”  
  
“My trick would pay for a cabin, in we’d go, and I’d do whatever we’d hashed out on the walk over while a dirty movie rolled. This was before the Euro took hold, so I was still working for Deutsche marks - and the average pick-up would net me anywhere from what would be about fifty to a hundred and fifty euros, now. Sometimes more, depending on their preferences, and what I could lift out of their pockets.”  
  
“I generally only stole from customers I didn’t intend to let pick me up again though,” he explained, “I could make more from a regular with a crush than I could picking their pockets. And I never stole from anyone who seemed like they might be handy with their fists; anyone who leaned towards aggression. It wasn’t worth the risk that they might put two and two together and come looking for me later.”  
  
“It wasn’t until Amsterdam, once I’d started working in a brothel, that I really found my feet with the longer cons…”  
  
Freddie’s eyes drifted back over to his younger self, and he swallowed hard as he saw a decently dressed, but still vaguely nondescript man, in his mid-thirties approach, stepping up with a somewhat nervous, jittery air about him. What Freddie remembered thinking at the time was that he had a strangely endearing sense of shame.  
  
It was part of why he’d gone with him, even though he’d already made more than enough money for the night.  
  
Well. That, and his inability to accept ‘enough’ as a concept, of course.  
  
More fool him.  
  
“There he is,” the fairy said quietly. “That one. He’s going to tell me he wants a blow-job - he’s going to stammer out that he wants to cum on my face, actually - and I’m going to agree.”  
  
“I’m going to kiss his cheek, and take his arm, and lead him over to Erotixx…”  
  
Freddie moved closer, his hand still clutching Ephram’s, until they were standing nearby enough to hear the exchange - a mish-mash of German and English, as sixteen-year-old Freddie ran down his prices, and precisely what each one would buy - watching as his teenage self did exactly what he’d said. He smiled, leaned in, and kissed the man’s cheek, taking his arm and heading off down the street.  
  
“I stopped doing that after tonight,” grown Freddie said suddenly, his voice distant again. “If they wanted kisses they had to pay for them.”  
  
He sighed, coming back to himself again. “Or that was the idea, anyway.” The fairy took a deep breath, doing his best to steel himself against the churning of his stomach and the tightness in his chest, and squeezed his witch’s hand. “Come on, love,” he said, “Let’s follow them. The sooner we get this over with the happier I’ll be.”  
  
“Oh Lord,” Ephram said, slightly shocked. “Ollie. What was he like during all of this happening? With the two of youn’s being connected and all.” For some reason it was the mention of the little Chin that added an extra layer of appalling to what Freddie was showing him. He’d known that Ollie had damn good reason to be so protective over his fairy, but seeing why was another matter.  
  
And hearing Freddie describe a night of selling his body as being “bog-standard” only served to underline it.  
  
Clutching hard to Freddie’s hand as they crossed the street and the Mercedes pulled off, Ephram said dumbly, “Georg. Like Captain von Trapp.” It was a patently stupid thing to say, and he hoped to hell Freddie didn’t take it as Ephram being glib about the memory they were watching. For all that Ephram had older cousins in prostitution growing up, he was starting to realize that those girls had fiercely protected him from knowing what their work was actually like. They’d been like Freddie, beautiful and careless and experts in deflection.  
  
Freddie – teenage Freddie – laughed, the sound shiny and shallow as tinsel, as grown-up Freddie apologized for meandering through his recounting of what they were seeing. The juxtaposition was almost too much for a moment and Ephram swallowed, thickly. “You keep on talking just as much as you like, honey,” he said. “I wanna hear whatever you wanna tell. It’s all part of you, ain’t it? So I want it all.”  
  
And Freddie kept talking, about what happened after he was picked up, about this club full of fucking BDSM crosses and slings that opened its backdoors to men who wanted somewhere to fuck the boys they paid for. Where those boys took whatever happened to them and made flash-fast decisions on how they could get out of it with a little more money or without bruises.  
  
Ephram cursed himself internally, endlessly. This was so, so much harder than he’d thought it would be; he now understood, even before they saw anything crucial, why Freddie had taken the time to make sure Ephram kept it in mind that this was the past, it had all been survived. But no matter how much Ephram told himself that, recited it like a mantra, there was an ache getting heavier in his ribcage the more that Freddie revealed. Sounding almost fond as he recounted a fiftysomething-year old man who wanted to lick cum off a teenager’s taut, soft-skinned belly. A _sweetheart_ , that one was.  
  
Ephram would gladly have killed every last one of them.  
  
“So where are we now?” Ephram asked haplessly, looking around. “This ain’t Amsterdam?” He had some faint idea about the red light district there, and had assumed this was it. “Was it any safer working in a brothel? I mean, did … did you live there? Did somebody take care of you there?” He couldn’t help but feel his questions sounded ridiculously naive, but he asked them anyhow. No matter what horrors were revealed, Ephram wanted them. To gather up and tuck away among the jealously hoarded tidbits about Freddie’s past that he’d already garnered.  
  
So he nodded when Freddie said the man wanted to jizz on his face, sternly telling himself that it wasn’t any more sordid than hooking up to do just that for free. Although it was damned hard with Freddie’s even more round, fat, baby mouth offering the man a list of increasingly intense sex acts that he could be bought for. Ephram didn’t even want to know what the German ones were.  
  
“I’m with you,” Ephram said when Freddie suggested they move onward, the simple offering all he could think to say. Anything more and one or both of them might lose it entirely.  
  
They started walking, following Freddie’s younger self and his trick on their way to the club - the man paying already slightly more aggressive than he’d been on approach; one hand firmly attached to the teenage fairy’s backside as they made their way down the street.  
  
And Freddie remembered that too. He remembered feeling a strange wave of apprehension as they’d walked, suddenly second-guessing his choice - but he’d pushed it down, ignoring it; because, having quoted this first-timer a slightly inflated price-point for the use of his mouth, he’d been quite keen to collect.  
  
He’d wanted to take the next night off; he remembered that too. To just stay in with Ollie and do nothing for an evening - and with this extra little infusion of cash, after what had already been a productive night out, he could manage it without needing to supplement things with nicked wallets and stolen watches. So he’d smothered his sudden prickle of doubt, and just walked a little faster; eager to get things over and done with.  
  
What he hadn’t known at the time, of course, was that this particular trick had enough cocaine running through him that ‘over and done with’ wasn’t something that was going to be easy, or painless, to achieve.  
  
But all that would happen shortly, and right now, ignorance was bliss. For the boy that Freddie used to be, at least.  
  
And the man that he was, had questions to answer.  
  
“No, love; this isn’t Amsterdam,” the fairy told his husband gently, “This is the Reeperbahn. Germany. We’re in Hamburg, right now; I spent about three and a half months here before I moved on to De Wallen.” He gave Ephram a bit of a smile. “There are all sorts of red light districts in the world, darling - Amsterdam just happens to be the most famous.”  
  
“And…no,” he continued, “-I didn’t actually _live_ in the brothel. I just turned up for my shifts. You see, when I started working in Amsterdam, I stuck mainly to a few specific bars - the sort that had back-rooms, and a bit of privacy. Rather a lot like I was doing here, only without the literal street-walking.”  
  
“And I performed in a few of the sex shows too, after I’d done a bit of networking - but even though they paid fairly well on the face of it, they didn’t afford me the same opportunities for repeat business. So I really only dabbled there - did the odd one every now and again; the brothel was the much better ticket.”  
  
Freddie thought back to the house in question; quiet and unassuming in a vaguely down-at-the-heels residential neighbourhood, not far from the red lights and more abject vulgarity - shabby, but not entirely inauspicious - and his lips quirked into something just shy of a smirk. “I was approached one night by the owner - head-hunted, I suppose - and the privéhuizen just seemed like a much better alternative to what I’d been doing. I mean, I had to pay him a cut - which I fiddled as best I could, as often as I could; he was fond of me, and wasn’t above sampling his own goods - but overall, it was much less effort for a substantially better return.”  
  
The fairy smiled. “Those regulars were the first genuine marks of my career, really. I took them for everything I could manage.”  
  
But his smile faded slightly as he looked at his witch, knowing that Ephram was hoping for a certain amount of reassurance; to be told that Freddie had been safe and protected there - but the truth wasn’t quite as black and white as all that. And Freddie refused to lie to him.  
  
“So it was a little safer, yeah,” he said softly, lifting Ephram’s hand to press a kiss to his knuckles, “Cleaner, and better organized. Better mannered. But since we dealt in boys, not girls, it was still a bit fly-by-night… I mean, we’re talking about over twenty years ago, love - attitudes have come a long way since then.”  
  
“But it was better. The odd iffy moment, but nothing unexpected for the work.”  
  
“And I can’t say as I had anyone to take care of me - unless you’re counting Ollie - but, really, until I met you, sweetheart - and Ruby, and Lizzie - that wasn’t something I ever had. Or ever expected. So it didn’t really factor in.”  
  
Realizing that he’d never answered Ephram’s earlier questions about how his familiar had handled this time in their lives, Freddie sighed. “And since you asked, Ollie hated all this. He worried constantly. Wanted to go with me; to stay with me while I was working - but I wouldn’t let him. He understood though. Oliver knows the way the world works; and we needed the money while I sorted out a better way to take care of us. I had to learn how to apply my magic, and my manipulations, out in the real world - and it was harder than I’d thought it would be.”  
  
Freddie flashed Ephram a rueful look. “I’m afraid, in some ways, I was more of a child than most, at sixteen.”  
  
“I just wasn’t smart enough to know it.”  
  
Their destination loomed up large on their right, and the fairy took a deep breath. “We’re here,” he said, watching as his teenage self led his trick inside, and then turning to his husband seriously. “Once we get in there, love - into the cabin - things are going to start happening quickly. And it’s not going to be very pleasant.”  
  
He reached up and touched Ephram’s face, looking into his eyes. “He’s going to hurt me, sweetheart. And there’s not going to be anything you can do about it.”  
  
“So I don’t want you to look, alright? If you don’t think you can manage it. I just… I don’t want that to be what you see when you look at me.”  
  
“Sex shows,” Ephram repeated, a blank look on his face as he tried to work out what those might entail before giving up and asking. “What happens in those? What were you supposed to do in em?”  
  
He’d felt a touch simple-minded and ghoulish asking these questions at first, but true to form Freddie had answered them all without any patronizing looks or flinching from what had been his truth and reality. Ephram was struck anew by just how brave his husband was, his incredible capacity to survive a life barren of love or care and not come away from it hardened. Freddie shone so bright with devotion and affection that Ephram felt warmed by it every time his fairy looked at him.  
  
It was excruciating not being able to blurt these things out as he thought them, as Ephram was normally wont to do. So he tucked them all away to be brought out later, when they could be wrapped up safe in each other. When Freddie wasn’t saying things that Ephram couldn’t wrap his head around – the brothel master being _fond_ of Freddie, which meant he’d fuck the boy in lieu of cash payments – the thought of which brought a _smile_ to Freddie’s face.  
  
How had Freddie done it, Ephram wondered. How did he manage to look back on his years selling his body after being denied support from his father and find any memories that were _pleasurable_?  
  
But that little smile faded when Freddie looked up at him, and then – sweet Jesus – tried to comfort and reassure Ephram that it wasn’t so bad, safe was a relative word, and it was okay that nobody cared because Freddie wasn’t accustomed to anybody caring. Ephram stared at Freddie and did his best to marshal his features into something calm and neutral, instead of the mounting horror at the lengths Freddie had been driven to rationalize the abuse, so he could keep himself sane and surviving.  
  
“You were just a baby,” Ephram couldn’t help himself saying. “So much to deal with, and you were so young, Freddie. So fucking young.” He wrapped his arms around his fairy, silent for a moment before saying, “There ain’t never been a time you wasn’t smart. But smart ain’t the same as life experience. Wasn’t nothin’ you could have done about that part.”  
  
Ephram drew away so they could both regroup, and said, “I’m glad you had Ollie. And he had you.” He planned to have a chat with the little familiar when they got back, thank Ollie properly for looking out for Freddie all this time.  
  
Even if he couldn’t keep the worst from happening, as it was going to in a few moments. Nobody could stop it.  
  
Putting his hand over Freddie’s against his face, Ephram said, “Freddie, honey, I wouldn’t look if you didn’t want me to, if this was any other situation. But baby…” Ephram patted his hip, paper rustling beneath his clothes. “I gotta watch. I gotta compare it to what you wrote down. That’s the deal and I ain’t gonna do nothin' to fuck it up no matter what we both prefer.” He breathed in, and out, and said, “I understand you don’t want me to see it. I wouldn’t want you seeing what I gone through in prison. But we ain’t got a choice, and baby, I know that what is about to go on in that room don’t define you.”  
  
Freddie stayed quiet when Ephram said that he’d been a baby when all this had been going on; that his youth, and lack of worldliness - his lack of life experience - absolved him of his missteps and more shamefully poor decisions, unsure of what to say, or how to feel about that.  
  
Instinctively, he didn’t believe it. He’d been trained from nearly infancy to think that all painful roads led back to his own inadequacy, his own ingrained deficiencies - but it was very tempting, hearing words of exoneration from the man that he loved, to want to think that maybe he hadn’t always brought it all on himself.  
  
Really though, that was neither here nor there tonight. What they were about to see was very much Freddie’s own doing - his own choice, his own faulty judgment - and no amount of semantic kindness from his husband could change that. So he just stayed quiet, and clung to Ephram, letting himself be held, until finally his witch pulled back again.  
  
Freddie had known, even as he’d told Ephram not to look at what was coming, that such a thing wasn’t going to be possible; that Ephram was here for exactly that purpose. He was here to see, to act as a witness - but still, the fairy felt his heart sink when Ephram said the words out loud.  
  
The bell was going to ring whether Freddie wanted it to or not. And the chime would reverberate through Ephram’s mind in some way, shape, or form, forever. It simply was what it was.  
  
So Freddie just nodded his acceptance of that fact, and took Ephram’s hand again, leading him inside.  
  
They were just in time to follow Freddie’s younger self and his trick through the heavy doors and into the club proper, where the walls were painted red and lit with same colour bulbs, giving everything a surreal pulsating glow - which somehow managed to accentuate the inherent obscenity of the place more than the drifting sounds of fucking ever could.  
  
The cabin they wanted was number seventeen, adult Freddie remembered, as they wound their way through the labyrinthine hallways deeper into the centre of the building; following the teenage prostitute and the older man at a discreet distance despite the fact that they couldn’t be seen or heard. And the closer they got to their destination, the more anxious Freddie felt; his skin already starting to crawl.  
  
So he did what he’d always done, and tried not to think about it.  
  
Not until he absolutely had to.  
  
Instead, he opted to attempt to answer the questions Ephram had posed outside. The ones he’d been too distracted to get to at the time.  
  
“Sex shows,” he said, as they walked, as though it were the natural continuation of their conversation; one red bulb flickering and creating an unsettling strobe sort of effect until they turned the next corner, “-are basically what you’d expect them to be. Certain clubs provided them, and for a flat rate, you’d perform. Nothing simulated, just two or more people on a stage, fucking for the entertainment of the punters. The pay was better in the straight clubs - though the girls still made a little more, being that they were the main attraction - and, then, of course, depending on what you were willing to do, there was a pay scale within that.”  
  
The fairy shrugged. “And you know me, darling - I’m versatile.”  
  
“But like I said, it wasn’t really conducive to repeat business. Even if you had a devoted fanbase, your wages stayed the same; and it just wasn’t worth it in the long run.”  
  
Finally, they arrived at a cabin marked ‘17′, and teenage Freddie and his trick headed inside, grown Freddie and Ephram following them in. “I don’t know if we can open doors in this state, love,” Freddie had murmured, moving faster, “We’d best not miss our chance…” - despite the adult fairy’s sudden and violent desire to be sick as soon as the door shut behind them.  
  
To turn away from his past and continue to pretend it had never even happened at all.  
  
Because almost as soon as they’d got inside, the trick had been on Freddie’s adolescent self, crowding him up against the wall, and kissing him, hard and messy; one groping hand already pulling at his clothes, as he growled guttural sexual slurs in German, instructing Freddie to strip and get on his knees. Calling him a slut, and a whore, and a pretty little cocktease.  
  
All of which was par for the course.  
  
Some men liked to sweet-talk him, some were silent; some talked dirty, and some leaned towards degradation - Freddie had already learned to keep his distance from it; to respond however the trick liked without allowing the words to touch him. But he remembered that this man - the way that he spoke - had chilled him.  
  
He remembered how he’d already known, by the time he sank, naked, to the floor, that this had the potential to go very badly indeed.  
  
And as soon as he’d got the trick’s cock into his mouth, it started to. Almost instantly.  
  
Adult Freddie stood there, watching, still holding Ephram’s hand, but unable to look anywhere near him, as his former self sucked the trick’s cock - hard from the moment it sprang out of his trousers - held painfully in place by the older man’s white-knuckled grip on his hair. But there was no finesse there, no technique - he wasn’t allowed the mobility for that. He was just made to take it as the trick fucked his face relentlessly, trying not to gag as that brutal cock was forced farther and farther down his throat; a litany of progressively angrier ‘encouragement’ filling the tiny room.  
  
This was Freddie’s first professional exposure to the oppositional effects of cocaine on the male libido - casual use often making a trick rampantly horny, while simultaneously impairing his ability to cum - but it wouldn’t be his last. He’d become quite familiar, by the time he went off the game, with the way that men would arrive, raring to go, with dilated eyes and huge erections, only to blame their inability to function properly on whoever had been unlucky enough to get their custom.  
  
Sometimes they could be gentled, talked round and appeased, until biology could override the drugs - and sometimes they couldn’t.  
  
Sometimes, you just had to take your lumps.  
  
And this was to be the first time Freddie would learn that lesson.  
  
The fairy remembered that in spite of the trick’s increasingly vocal frustration, and teetering rage, at his unreachable orgasm, at Freddie’s inability to make him cum - finally pulling out of Freddie’s mouth, leaving him winded and drooling, his jaw aching and his lips red - he hadn’t seen the hit coming. It connected with a crack, and sent him sprawling, his teeth cutting the inside of his cheek and filling his mouth with blood. And he remembered vividly the sharp cold stab of fear that he’d felt, his heart hammering in his chest, when he’d pushed himself up again.  
  
And now he watched it from the other side. Saw that fear in his own eyes as he spat the bloody mess onto the floor, and lurched for his clothes and the door; trying desperately to fake bravado and indignation in the hopes that it would save him.  
  
But it wouldn’t.  
  
The trick had grabbed him again before he’d made it two complete steps, completely ignoring everything the boy was insisting about the deal being off; that the trick could keep his fucking money because Freddie didn’t play that way.  
  
Maybe, Freddie thought now, as he watched himself, struggling stupidly and getting slapped for his trouble, it would have worked if he hadn’t had tears in his eyes. If his voice hadn’t sounded so shaky.  
  
If he hadn’t seemed quite so young.  
  
But unfortunately, he had, and the trick had likely smelled blood in the water.  
  
Or he hadn’t; and he wouldn’t have cared either way. Regardless, it had long since ceased to matter.  
  
The past was the past, and it was written in stone.  
  
He and Ephram were only here to read it.  
  
Ephram was still mentally sorting out the unspoken story in Freddie’s explanation of the live sex shows – how Freddie’s versatility was linked to the sorts of acts he might have been asked to perform, how even if the club filled with slavering spectators Freddie still got the same take-home pay – when his husband quickly tugged him through the door, with a warning about their physical non-presence. The technicalities of their walking ghost state wasn’t something Ephram had the brainpower to devote to right now, with his every thought consumed with absorbing and digesting the details of his Freddie’s life.  
  
 _Sixteen_. The number pounded through Ephram’s body with every beat of his heart, the age seeming more and more criminally young with each new sordid event explained. How had Freddie managed to hold onto himself, with so many people trying to tear off or grind down pieces of him? At an age where kids were still trying to figure out who they were and what they were worth? Ephram suddenly felt very much like crying. What Freddie was showing him was only one of the reasons his fairy, his sunshine-sweet husband with the confidence of a thousand stars still, deep down inside, believed himself to be worthless. Or at least only worth the money somebody was willing to pay to use his body and then discard him.  
  
What Ephram had done to Freddie, in offering to give him up to make Elizabeth happy, took on new and horrific significance to the witch. It was one more stone in the sack weighing Freddie down as he tried to flounder to the surface for a breath of feeling cherished, treasured, of innate worth.  
  
Hell, Ephram thought with a bilious spurt of self-loathing, coming from somebody who was supposed to love and support Freddie, it was probably a whole ‘nother sack of rocks.  
  
For a moment Ephram’s disgust at his own treatment of Freddie overlapped with the rough dirty names that the man was calling the fairy boy – quite a few of which Ephram had employed himself while he was fucking Freddie – but his own culpability in hurting Freddie took a backseat to what was happening soon enough. The trick’s increasing violence and anger as even the brutal skullfucking didn’t bring him off, the glassy wildness in his staring eyes as he treated Freddie like nothing more than a hole, it was stomach-lurching to watch with that sense of inevitable tragedy heavy in the air. And still the blow came fast and sudden enough that Ephram jolted, a pained sound in his throat as baby Freddie’s mouth ran with blood.  
  
The fear in his eyes was worse, though. There was nobody here to help him, those wide blue-grey eyes knew. There was possibly nobody in the whole wide _world_ who would have anyhow.  
  
Ephram pushed against his grownup Freddie, angling slightly behind him so he could wrap his arms around Freddie and hold him close, some futile effort to keep his precious darling safe as they watched things escalate. The witch was shaking, his body unable to contain the high-tension nerves that came from witnessing this ordeal … and from seeing, not for the first time, how much he had in common with these drug-laced and violent men who’d cut such deep wounds into his husband.  
  
Realizing that he hadn’t said a word since they’d gotten into the room, Ephram held Freddie tight and said, “You didn’t deserve this. You didn’t deserve none of it. Nobody would deserve this.”  
  
Freddie just stood there, with Ephram’s arms around him, watching, as his teenage self struggled fruitlessly against the trick’s superior strength and size. The violence employed to subdue him, quick and ugly; the scent of sex, both fresh and stale, now competing for dominance in the tiny room, with the curdled smell of fear, and the coppery tang of wet blood.  
  
He watched as the boy he’d been was spun round and pressed against the wall, the trick grunting into his ear in guttural German that he intended to fuck him now; that he was paying for him, and he could do what he liked. That Freddie’s asshole had better be worth more than his mouth.  
  
And the fairy remembered how scared he’d been - his jaw still aching from the way he’d already been used - of how much it would hurt to be fucked in the ass with the same voracity. How frightened he’d been of what would happen if a fuck still wasn’t enough to bring this man off; to satisfy him.  
  
Foolishly, he’d never considered the possibility that something like this could happen; that he might lose control of the situation…  
  
He’d thought himself much too clever for that.  
  
And it hurt now, more than a little, to recognize that it was the exact same sort of hubris that had brought him back here to witness it all over again.  
  
Freddie stood, staring, as the glamour keeping his folded wings out of sight flickered when the trick kicked his legs apart - though the other man failed to notice in his drug-fueled fog of lust and violence - but when he heard his own shaky watery voice join the dialogue again, rough from being throat-fucked, and distorted by the new swelling in his split lip, he finally had to look away.  
  
It had been the right decision to capitulate, he knew. To stop struggling and just accept what was going to happen; to try to spare himself any additional pain, or injury, and attempt to hasten things along. Freddie had known it then; and he knew it now.  
  
But that didn’t make it any easier to see. Or admit to.  
  
And when the trick thrust into him - teenage Freddie dry and unprepared, save for any lingering traces of the other two men who’d already been inside him tonight - fucking him deep and hard, the adult fairy dropped his eyes down to the floor and kept them there. He remembered all too well what had happened and how it had felt without needing to witness it from a new angle.  
  
The sound of his own tearful, pained ‘encouragement’ was bad enough all on its own.  
  
It was a small mercy when the trick’s hand closed around his throat, choking it off.  
  
He could feel Ephram trembling as he held him though, and Freddie felt terrible for putting him through this. “Deserve’s a funny word, sweetheart,” he said softly, “Because I didn’t _need_ to be here tonight. I wasn’t starving, I didn’t have a drug habit, or a pimp - I said yes because I wanted the money. Nothing more noble, or tragic than that.”  
  
He reached over to stroke his husband’s arm, though he still couldn’t look at him. “But it’ll be over soon, love; I promise. Just another few minutes more.”  
  
Ephram didn’t understand the German. But he didn’t have to. That tone was a universal one, and the way the trick was so rough with Freddie ( _he’s just a child_ , Ephram’s heart shrieked, _and one alone in the world, hadn’t he suffered enough_?) wasn’t completely foreign either. The ugliness of it translated crystal clear.  
  
Drawing Freddie against him, Ephram watched, eyes unblinking and burning, as he held his husband’s face against his neck. “Don’t look,” Ephram ordered him, voice rusting so low it was barely audible. “You don’t ever have to think about this again.” He kissed Freddie’s head compulsively, muttering, “I’m glad you brought me here and not one of the girls. You did the right thing, honey. I can handle this. I’m gonna keep it safe for you, if one day you ever wanna know about it again. Or I’m gonna take it to my grave.”  
  
He pressed the words against Freddie’s soft hair, trying to drown out the sick sounds of baby Freddie begging and pleading, the bastard trick hurling abuse at him, and the ungodly suck of skin and fear sweat, coke sweat, one body forcing itself into another and cleaving it open. Despite that, Ephram kept watching, murmuring nonsense love words fiercely against Freddie’s skull and hardly aware of just how tightly – fingertips digging against Freddie’s scalp, arms immobilizing the smaller man – he was holding his fairy.  
  
“And so what if it ain’t noble or tragic,” Ephram said, jaw tight as he witnessed Freddie’s wet, anguished face when the trick’s hand on his throat tilted his head up, starting to jackhammer Freddie against the unyielding wall. “This goddamn devil motherfucker should never have touched you at all much less in anger, baby, there’s nothin' more to it than that.”  
  
Ephram was still shaking. But the tenor and roughness of his voice were so sulfurous, his muscles so rigid, that it was evident he wasn’t trembling in fear or sadness. It was pure, blue-hot rage, commuted through his arms and hands to hold Freddie so close it was almost suffocating. “You’ll never have to think of yourself treated like this again, God help me.”  
  
His face hidden against Ephram’s neck - held there, immobile, by the strength of his husband’s arms, and the force of Ephram’s rage at what had happened; what couldn’t be undone - Freddie could no longer see the violence playing out in front of them. But he could hear it. And he remembered it.  
  
And he would feel every second of it until it was over, even if he didn’t have to look.  
  
He heard his sixteen-year-old self gasping for air, choking - remembering how his vision had started to dim, and how he’d had to struggle to stay conscious, despite the searing pain in his ass. He remembered being grateful when the brutal thrusts had gotten smoother - not realizing, until after the trick had gone, that it was blood that had eased the way.  
  
And as he listened - to the trick’s grunting and swearing, and the slap of flesh-on-flesh - it was his own few desperate attempts, as he struggled for breath, to urge the other man along, as though he was a willing participant, that made him the sickest.  
  
Survival, he’d come to realize as he’d aged, was very often a deeply ugly thing.  
  
And it was hard to breathe now, crushed up against Ephram’s chest - but Freddie wouldn’t have changed it for the world; holding his husband tightly, comforted by the force of Ephram’s anger on his behalf, but glad that he didn’t have to see his eyes, already afraid of the damage this might have done to them. Frightened that, from now on, Ephram would only ever see the teenage prostitute in front of him, when it was the man who needed his attention.  
  
His _love_.  
  
But then finally, finally, the sound of the trick’s pounding began to stutter, the brutal rhythm jerking until the man came with a roar, cutting off Freddie’s air altogether, and filling the fairy’s younger self with spunk; collapsing against him, and pressing the boy against the wall.  
  
Grown Freddie remembered how it had made his skin crawl to feel the trick’s sweat sticking to his own. Remembered the man’s fetid breath in his face as he’d finally let go of his throat, and pulled out; and how he’d had to swallow a mouthful of vomit.  
  
Holding his witch with white knuckles, breathing in Ephram’s cologne - cologne that Freddie himself had chosen - he remembered how he’d just stood there, watching, trying to get his breath back, lungs aching, blood and cum dripping out of him, as the trick had dressed again. (He could hear the jingle of the man’s belt buckle now, the rustle of his clothes as he pulled them on.) And he remembered, with perfect clarity, how terrified he’d been to move. To do anything to provoke him again.  
  
How he’d just wanted him gone. Gone, gone, _gone_.  
  
Freddie listened now, clutching Ephram harder, as the trick took out his wallet and dropped the teenager’s money on the bench that ran along the opposite wall, before taking his leave; murmuring on the way out that Freddie had been worth the price after all.  
  
And then his younger self got his wish, and he was alone.  
  
Finally lifting his head, pulling back from Ephram’s grasp, adult Freddie watched himself stand stock-still for a few more moments, waiting, wanting to be sure that the trick wasn’t coming back, before sinking down to the floor, his back to the wall, and beginning to cry; covering his mouth to muffle the sound, and screaming into his palm.  
  
Trembling, and shaking, as the full force of what had happened to him hit him all at once.  
  
But that wasn’t what was making him sob, grown Freddie knew; not entirely. Because even then, the boy that he’d been had known that he would heal, and the fear would abate, and that he would learn from this because he didn’t yet have any other choice.  
  
What was making him cry was the knowledge that this terrible, painful thing had happened to him-  
  
And there was _no one_ in the world who would tell him that it would be alright.  
  
Growing up where he did in the holler meant that Ephram had become inured to many unsavoury things, one among them being the hard maintenance of food graft; he knew how to shoot, butcher, and dress almost any animal he came across without a flinch or a blink.  
  
Seeing the bright, thin blood wind down Freddie’s legs trailed by sickly-looking globs of cum made him remember, forcefully, how hard it had been to watch his first few times. The pitiful screams of the animals that didn’t quite realize yet they were dead; the uncontrolled shaking of their limbs as their bodies slowly succumbed. To see his beloved Freddie, only a calf yet, going through those throes of being slaughtered was one of the hardest sights that Ephram’d ever had to endure.  
  
He knew he couldn’t touch that memory phantom, couldn’t bundle this smaller, slighter, utterly lost Freddie into his arms like he was allowed to manhandle his own grownup Freddie, but Lord, Ephram longed to. The bleakness in the thin bones of the boy’s face stood out in stark contrast with the florid bruised rosebud of his mouth, the rabbit-soft brown hair, the terribly beautiful crystal blue of his red-rimmed and haunted eyes. He was beautiful, somehow, even defiled and wretched as he was, and Ephram hated himself for a moment for thinking it.  
  
Ruby, Elizabeth – they’d never linger in the sordid flesh response to what they were seeing, whatever memories Freddie was handing over to them. Maybe this was solely the province of men, Ephram thought vividly, this primeval feral desire in him that could witness his lover being brutalized and degraded and yet want to claim Freddie’s body for himself again, hold him close, press as much love and safety into him as possible. Ephram hoped to God that his own Freddie wasn’t picking up on any of this, even though it felt like his body was radiating the intense heat of this unwholesome feverish want.  
  
He would have tenderly licked that blood away, if he could.  
  
Ephram reached for Freddie’s hand, clasping it tightly in his own. “It’s over,” he said, a banked fire giving his voice a sinister glow, embers of fury and possessive desire both. “For good.” He looked away from baby Freddie for the first time since they’d entered Cabin 17, at his own Freddie, and felt a torrent of passionate, immeasurable love fill his ribcage. “My brave, sweet boy,” Ephram said. “My Freddie. You’ll never have to be here again.”  
  
Not just in the sense of never re-living this vicious assault again; that was a positive, yes, but that wasn’t what Ephram was thinking.  
  
What he meant was that so long as he was drawing breath in this life, Freddie would never, ever again be that _alone_.  
  
Freddie was still watching his younger self cry when Ephram took his hand, drawing his attention away from his past, and back to his present. And for a moment, he had exactly what the boy on the floor was longing for - someone strong, and wonderful, promising him that everything would be alright; loving him, and making him believe that there was nothing in the world stronger than that.  
  
And then Freddie remembered why they were here - the spectre of Martin Adjaye almost a physical presence in the room - and he realized that absolutely nothing was alright.  
  
Everything was horrifyingly wrong, and only likely to get worse.  
  
But at the same time, he knew that if Ephram could, he’d rescue Freddie from all of it. And that made it easier to stand.  
  
Freddie squeezed his husband’s hand as his teenage self began pulling himself together, getting slowly and painfully to his feet, and gathering up his clothes; and the grown up fairy remembered for a moment how long and how cold the walk home had been before forcing himself to put it out of his mind.  
  
He looked up at Ephram - who he loved with a ferocity that frightened him sometimes - and touched his witch’s face gently, murmuring, “Thank-you, sweetheart,” before leaning against his chest, and giving in to the sudden wave of vertigo gladly.  
  
The sooner that bloody box closed, the happier he’d be. For once in his life, he actually welcomed a loss.  
  
Hearing Freddie’s adult voice was something of a shock after listening to his lighter, less polished voice begging desperately, wailing in pain and bleak, empty horror and Ephram startled for a moment before he realized it was over. Not just for Freddie but for his own part as witness, as the tugging vertigo took hold of them.  
  
And they were back in the life they shared, lying on their bed, still holding hands. Ephram didn’t dare look at the Trapper. He didn’t want to see it and be reminded that Martin Adjaye was still waiting out there.  
  
Instead Ephram breathed in, held it, and breathed out again before rolling onto his side to face Freddie. “Look at me,” he urged. “Honey, tell me you’re okay, tell me you’re back here with me.” His eyes searched Freddie’s face, trying to discern some twitch or tightness that would tell Ephram what state his husband was in.  
  
Freddie’s eyes fluttered open slowly, and he blinked at Ephram for a moment, trying to clear the fog out of his head - which was aching - and lifting a hand to touch his husband’s beautiful face. He stroked softly at the gold of Ephram’s beard as his eyes welled with tears; feeling suddenly, horrifyingly, sad with absolutely no idea why.  
  
“I’m okay,” he said thickly, nodding his head; though he knew he likely looked otherwise. “I’m here, love. I just… I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”  
  
“ _Nothing’s_ the matter with you.” It was a sappy thing to say but Ephram didn’t care, not with Freddie looking heartbroken and small, kittenlike. “Things are just overwhelming is all. And you been brave so long, Freddie, you been strong for so, so fuckin’ long.” He shifted closer, kissing Freddie’s wounded-looking mouth. Nothing had happened to his fairy physically in the memory, but Freddie still looked crumpled, rode hard and put away wet.  
  
“I never felt so lucky to have you in my life, honey,” Ephram said, moving his chin against Freddie’s fingers. “I never been so proud of you. The man you made of yourself, the compassion you have, the way your love shines out of you so bright.” He dipped his chin, kissing Freddie’s fingertips. “My beautiful, sweet boy.”  
  
Freddie smiled through his tears when Ephram assured him that nothing was the matter with him; telling him that he was brave, and strong - though Freddie currently felt nothing of the kind. And when his witch moved closer, kissing his mouth gently, Freddie returned it gratefully.  
  
The memory they’d visited was lost to him now, erased from his memory, and shut up tight in the box, and so he didn’t necessarily feel deserving of so many sweet words from his husband - as far as he could tell, he’d done nothing lately to earn them - but the fairy drank them in regardless; knowing there was nothing in the world better able to ward off the sudden and pervasive sadness that seemed be clinging to him.  
  
Cuddling closer, Freddie wanted to touch as much of Ephram as he possibly could. “Whatever it was you saw, love,” he said, “I’m sorry. If it was terrible…”  
  
He touched Ephram’s face again, as if to reassure himself that he was real. “I’m glad you were with me though. Whatever it was.”  
  
Nodding solemnly, Ephram said, “You were right to take me with you for this one, baby. Exactly right.” He moved one long leg to loop it over Freddie’s thigh, locking them firmly together. “It _was_ terrible,” Ephram murmured, stroking Freddie’s face with his knuckles, as gently as if he was brushing down gold foil onto his fairy’s skin. “But _you_ weren’t. You were my incredible Freddie just like you are right now.”  
  
Freddie had been partly right, in worrying that Ephram wouldn’t forget what he’d seen and what had been done to the teenage fairy in that ugly little red-pounding room. But while it changed Ephram’s picture of his husband, it only made it a little more complete. And fleshed out the ordeals that Freddie’d had to overcome.  
  
It made him admire Freddie even more.  
  
He kissed Freddie’s mouth, just the corner of that plush cushion. “Just like you are right now,” Ephram repeated. “Just like you’ll always be.” He stroked Freddie’s hair, smiling slightly. “So tone it down some, huh? Give us more drab birds a chance once in a while, peacock.”  
  
Drawn closer by Ephram’s leg, Freddie felt some of that bone-deep sadness start to abate, and he closed his eyes as Ephram’s knuckles stroked lightly over his face; losing himself momentarily in the sensation, before nodding, almost imperceptibly, at Ephram’s confirmation that his memory had, indeed, been awful. Whatever it had been had been excised efficiently from the fairy’s consciousness - but given what was left, the remembrances he hadn’t chosen, that still held court in the darker corners of his head, he had a reasonably good idea just how bad it could have been.  
  
Though he was still fairly certain that ‘incredible’ as a descriptor was likely more than he deserved.  
  
But he didn’t argue. Ephram wouldn’t hear it, he knew - and truth be told, though he knew it was hardly a secret, there were few things in life he liked better than finding himself on the receiving end of his husband’s praise.  
  
Of this kind of care and attention.  
  
So when Ephram kissed him again, Freddie tried to turn towards it, wanting more; the ghost of another small smile tugging at his lips as he was pet, and told to tone it down.  
  
“You’re a great many things, darling,” the fairy murmured, cuddling closer and brushing Ephram’s lips with his own, “-but drab will never ever be one of them.”  
  
“I’m a frizzle chicken at best,” Ephram said with a laugh, made breathy by the touch of Freddie’s mouth. “But I don’t mind. I got charms enough to have you here in my arms looking at me like you are–” he planted soft kisses just under each of Freddie’s eyebrows, “–and that’s well enough for me, my pretty sweetie.”  
  
Freddie, Ephram had learned, tended to be more than happy to be led away from the darker paths of discussion that unearthed things he’d rather leave buried. And while Ephram normally tried to push a little bit and soften the ground for his husband to dig some of those festering things up, right now they were both softened up enough. Bruised, really. Even if Freddie wasn’t consciously aware of what they’d seen, he’d still feel it in the tenseness of his muscles and the sheer heft of his emotional response.  
  
So Ephram, for once, left well enough alone and took his fairy to the bright, sunny meadows to play.  
  
“I love my love with an F,” he said with the solemnity of children confiding secrets, “because he’s forgiving. I hate him with a F because he’s fancy.” Ephram chortled, kissing Freddie’s nose. “I fed him on fried fruit pies and flounder. His name is Frederick, and he lives in Fairyland.” He’d been enchanted by this game since reading about Alice playing it, ages ago, and here with his London-born sweetheart seemed like the perfect opportunity to revisit.  
  
Freddie huffed out a soft sigh as Ephram kissed his face, something indicative of safety, and security, and the gentle letting-go of things that hurt. “Well, that works out then,” he said, “Because I happen to think that frizzle chickens are absolutely wonderful.”  
  
But he laughed, in spite of himself, when Ephram began to intone a nursery game that Freddie had all but forgotten; his chest aching a little with the depth of his love for his husband.  
  
And with the gratitude he felt at being loved by this man and wrapped up in his arms.  
  
“You do know it’s not fair at all that your name begins with E, don’t you?” he said, smiling though his eyes were a little wet again. “F’s a doddle, E is ever so much more difficult…”  
  
Freddie thought for a moment, then said, “I love my love with an E, because he’s elysian. Endearing, enchanting and exquisite. I hate him with an E because he’s,” Freddie grinned fondly, “exhausting. I feed him on eggs benedict and edam cheese. His name is Ephram, and he lives… in Fairyland. With me. Because I couldn’t bear to have him live anywhere else.”  
  
“All that complainin’ and here you went and came up with a whole herd of E words,” Ephram scolded, his face pink with pleasure at Freddie’s generous praise. “Some of em new ones on me. What’s ‘elysian’ mean?”  
  
Ephram was having a bit of a tough time himself in not getting weepy. The space between them felt nothing less than sacred, sanctified by the love neither of them could – or would – hide. There was nothing so beautiful as Freddie when he felt cherished, Ephram thought as he drank in the profoundly warm depths of his husband’s loving gaze. As he should have been from the beginning.  
  
“So in Fairyland,” he asked, cupping his hand at the side of Freddie’s neck and stroking the elegant sweep of his throat with his thumb, “is hot witch-on-fairy action allowed? Because that’s non-negotiable.” Ephram kept his tone light, teasing, laying the ground for them to enjoy some mildly naughty teasing and touching … but the firm pressure of his thumb hinting that if Freddie should want more, Ephram was more than ready to deliver.  
  
“But I had to complain,” Freddie protested with a soft chuckle, pleased to see Ephram enjoying the words that he’d chosen, “It’s part of my natural fairy disinclination towards even the suggestion of difficulty.” He smiled up into his husband’s clear blue eyes. “And elysian means heavenly, love. It was the very first E word I thought of…”  
  
Letting out a little hum of encouragement as Ephram stroked his throat gently, Freddie shifted a little closer, a flare of heat in his eyes at his husband’s teasing. “Oh,” he said, his voice a warm rumble, “-hot witch-on-fairy action is an absolute requirement in Fairyland, darling. I wouldn’t live anywhere it wasn’t.”  
  
He closed the distance between them then to kiss Ephram’s mouth again; opening his own to invite his witch in, finding that he wanted nothing more than to be close in all the ways that they could be.  
  
Wanting Ephram’s hands, and mouth, and body to chase away all the lingering shadows.  
  
“Non-negotiable,” he murmured against his husband’s lips, “-that’s what you said, yeah?”  
  
The moment Freddie kissed Ephram with more intent, his plum mouth sighing open so that Ephram licked against his tongue as if it were the most natural thing in the world, it brought focus to the confused, faintly guilty desire that Ephram had been left with after what he’d witnessed. He slicked his tongue against the inside of Freddie’s upper lip, then growled and bowled his fairy over in the bed, pinning him down.  
  
“That’s what I said,” he said, snatching up Freddie’s hand to guide it between them, against Ephram’s growing arousal. “And I’m a man of my word.”  
  
Thrusting into the warm, strong cup of Freddie’s palm, Ephram kissed that round mouth swollen, until he could only feel heat and blood barely held in by tissue-thin membrane. “Goddammit, Freddie,” he gritted out, “you wicked, naughty little slut, you make me want you so bad, so fuckin’ bad.” He started to undress Freddie, grasping at the skin that came bare with each tug. “Even when you’re not with me, Jesus, I just gotta think about what your ass feels like milking my cock and how pretty your skin is with lil pearls of cum across it and the–”  
  
Ephram groaned, dragging his hand through Freddie’s hair and tugging so that he bared Freddie’s throat, sucking bruises against that vulnerable column. “The way you look, and sound,” he said, voice thickened with lust. “How your eyelids get shiny and your lips look they’re gonna burst, and the way your voice gets so husky and you start, you start begging for it, ah, _fuck_ …”  
  
Yanking Freddie’s trousers off him, Ephram tossed them aside and pushed his face against his husband’s cock, rubbing his cheek and mouth against the hardening length and breathing in his scent. “I could gobble you down,” he said, voice shaking from want. “Tear you to pieces and seal you back together with my cum and my spit so I can have you again, and again, and sometimes I never want to fuckin’ _stop_ , Freddie, I need to have you so bad, so bad, _so bad_.”  
  
By this point Ephram had divested himself of all his clothes too, and he scooped his arms behind Freddie, unfurling his wings. “So bad,” he whispered, eyes half-wild and seeing into something beyond where they were as Ephram gathered Freddie’s wings, rubbing his fingers along them, tickling, pinching. Licking his thumb and then dragging it down that strip of skin between the wing joints. “Lock you up in a room,” Ephram said, kissing Freddie’s collarbone along to his shoulder, hands moving down over the voluptuous muscles of his fairy’s back to the toothsome heft of his ass. "keep you there, all the time, just for me, just for myself."  
  
He brought one hand to Freddie’s mouth, pushing two fingers inside with a look that burned with intense, unstoppable passion. “I wanna–” Ephram began, but then his voice dipped lower: “I’m gonna fuck you until I get my fill, Freddie. For ages. For _hours_. I can do that, you know. Ain’t nothin’ but a simple enough spell.” He removed his fingers, slicking them against Freddie’s hole, and leaned in to claim the fairy’s wet-hot mouth, kissing deeply and greedily. “You want that, baby? For me to keep you on my cock until I’ve swelled out your belly with my cum?”  
  
Groping at Ephram’s cock as it thickened for him, his husband’s kisses leaving him breathless and wanting, when Ephram called him a naughty little slut, his voice all low rumbling intensity, tugging Freddie’s clothes off at the same time that he sang his praises - telling him all the ways that Freddie made him want him; made him need, and crave him - the fairy was struck not only with a rushing desperate wave of love and lust, but, strangely, of relief.  
  
Relief that whatever the Trapper had shown and then locked away hadn’t been enough to mar Ephram’s feelings for him.  
  
That it hadn’t been enough to tamp his desire.  
  
“God, I want that,” Freddie said, his voice rough, once he’d been stripped of his trousers; letting out a low whining moan as Ephram’s furred cheek and warm lips dragged over the sensitive skin of his rapidly hardening cock. “…Ephram… Ephram, please…”  
  
“That’s all I ever want…” the fairy breathed, rocking his hips up needily, “…just to feel like I’m yours… always…”  
  
“…You can do _anything_ , sweetheart… I’ll beg you to…”  
  
“I _always_ want to be what you want…”  
  
Freddie arched his back when Ephram’s hands found his wings, drawing them out, and fondling them, making him tremble and shudder, his cock leaking all over his belly as he keened with pleasure; grabbing for Ephram with the same kind of possessive hunger that was thrumming through his husband’s hands, leaving lingering traces on his own body. And Freddie could feel his blood rushing in his veins, something inside him singing with the joy of it, every time Ephram fingertips moved across his skin.  
  
Burying his hands in his witch’s hair as Ephram’s mouth laid its claim on his collarbone, the fairy parted his thighs; reveling in every moment of his lover’s hunger for him. Reveling in the the force of Ephram’s passion, and returning it; not wanting to leave an inch of his husband’s body untouched, or untasted.  
  
“Lock me up anywhere… use me, keep me… fuck me so that I know I’m yours, Ephram…”  
  
“Don’t ever let me go,” he panted.  
  
Freddie laved at Ephram’s fingers, sucking them like he sucked his cock, getting them sloppy-wet, and then craned up for a kiss when they were pulled free again; murmuring “Yes, yes, fuck yes…” when Ephram laid his intent bare; promising to fuck Freddie for hours, to fuck him until he couldn’t take anymore.  
  
To fuck him until his witch had decided they’d had enough, and not a moment before.  
  
Freddie bucked up, trying to rub his aching prick against Ephram’s stomach, as his husband’s long fingers teased wetly at his empty hole; and he groaned, his mouth soft against Ephram’s lips, answering his question with a broken gasp. “So much. I want that so much, love…”  
  
“Keep me on your cock until I’m stretched, and sore, and gaping for you…” Freddie dug his fingers into the meat of Ephram’s shoulders, as he pulled his closer, “…and then fuck me _harder_.”  
  
Ephram’s pupils dilated sharply, stormy blue getting swallowed up in black when Freddie begged to be kept, and owned, and used to whatever degree Ephram needed to slake his mounting, cavernous lust. It was heady as all fuck, his darling’s sueded, scrubby voice catching and damp as he voiced his own desire to be filled, fucked. Cherished and defiled all at once.  
  
It was a need that Ephram knew well, having swum in its tidal depths himself. And that was what whetted his hunger even further, to know this dynamic from both sides and understand what it was Freddie was feeling. His husband didn’t stray as far into the masochistic as Ephram had, in the throes of his own searing need, but it was that same bone-deep desperation to be the centre of somebody’s universe, the focus of all their attention, to finally stop thinking and thinking about survival and let somebody else have control.  
  
Knowing that Freddie wanted that from him made Ephram almost insane with desire.  
  
Grasping his achingly stiff cock, Ephram pushed a spiral of green magic into the thick base of it accompanied by three guttural words, and then without any more waiting, plunged into Freddie’s still-tight hole. His back arched at the burn and pressure and he gave a groaning cry, his heart hammering in his brain. “Oh God, baby,” Ephram gasped, “you’re so fuckin’ tight, you feel so sweet around my cock, so hot, such a whore for it.” Ephram lowered his head again, memorizing the look on Freddie’s face as he took it, and he kissed the fairy’s rose of a mouth tenderly. “You want daddy to fuck you good, baby? My darlin’ Freddie, so precious, so good, you wanna make me happy, right? Tell me how bad you want it.”  
  
Ephram pulled out slightly and thrust back in, gritting his teeth. “I’m gonna get you a collar,” he promised, kissing along Freddie’s jaw as he slowly, forcefully started to pick up the pace. “It’ll look like a necklace to everybody else but it won’t come off, Freddie, not unless I put my magic to it. I won’t tell nobody.” He nosed into the hollow of Freddie’s throat, licking the sweat starting to puddle there. “Only you’n me are gonna know.”  
  
Hooking his hands around Freddie’s knees, Ephram tugged them farther apart and leaned the entire weight of his body against Freddie, the last few inches of his cock sawing into Freddie’s tender hole before Ephram held still, panting. “Knot you like you’re my fuckin’ bitch,” he muttered, kissing Freddie again and again. “Mine, mine, you’ll always be mine, Freddie, mine to love and to breed and to love some more, and I’m gonna, you’re gonna get it, honey, you’re gonna take all of the love that I’m gonna fuck into the guts and soul of you.”  
  
As soon as the words left his mouth, Freddie could see - he could feel - the effect they’d had on his witch, and immediately, there was a sense of sublime surrender that cascaded over him, warming him from the inside out and wrapping him up tight.  
  
A security in submission that seemed to light up all of his nerve-endings at once. And Freddie knew that was because this time, his submission was genuine. It was deep, and complete, and hungry.  
  
It was for _Ephram_ \- and that made all the difference.  
  
The fairy watched, rapt, as his husband’s magic flowed into the base of his thick cock, the words of the spell sending a rippling shiver down his spine; and then let out a moaning sob as it was pushed inside him. The blunt, sticky head forcing his unprepared hole to give; to stretch and make room for Ephram’s heat and hardness. For the silky granite of that perfect cock, as it rearranged him. Reshaped him. Molded him into something new.  
  
And Freddie pushed back against it; wanting Ephram deeper. Wanting that burn to last. Wanting to feel him in his belly. To feel him up in the back of his throat.  
  
Knowing that the pleasure was worth the pain. That this kind of love was _supposed_ to sear.  
  
His eyes squeezed shut, and his wet lips parted, Freddie clutched at Ephram tightly, feeling those ropy muscles taut under his hands, his chest heaving as Ephram groaned; proud that that noise was for him. And when Ephram began to speak, murmuring filthy praise, making the word ‘whore’ sound as sweet as ‘baby’, Freddie’s eyes opened again as he was kissed, and he nodded breathlessly when Ephram pulled back again. “You know I do…” he promised, “I want it so much, so bad…”  
  
“Daddy, please…” He clenched around Ephram’s cock, hoping the endearment, the honorific, wasn’t too much, too far…  
  
“Fill me full of your cum, your spit… your fingers, your tongue, your cock… I want it so much… I never-”  
  
“ …God, I _never_ stop…”  
  
The fairy swore softly when Ephram pulled out and then drove back in, moaning as his husband began to fuck him in earnest, each push of Ephram’s hips making him whimper; the pain of being fucked hard and raw, see-sawing with the starburst raptures of pleasure his witch’s cock could bring as it delved deeper. And when he was promised a collar - something permanent and tangible to use a touchstone to remind him that he was loved, that he was precious, something just between them - the fairy was sure that he’d never wanted anything more.  
  
It was something that couldn’t be bought, or stolen. Something he could never ever have unless Ephram cared enough to give it. Unless Ephram wanted him to have it.  
  
Something entirely dependent on love.  
  
Just for him. Never for anyone else.  
  
For a moment, Freddie was ashamed of the way his heart leapt for it.  
  
And then he tilted his head back as Ephram licked at the hollow of his throat, and murmured, “Yeah… yeah, I want that… I do…“  
  
“…put it on me, and never take it off…  
  
Ephram pushed his legs even further apart, forcing himself in flush, balls-deep, and then stopped - holding Freddie, impaled there on his cock. Making him wait, keeping him beautifully on the razor’s edge of all his promises.  
  
The fairy’s hole was stretched and sore already, his own prick wet and rigid as he was kissed and kissed and kissed, giving back as good as he got; his witch pledging both his love, and his cum, eternally. And Freddie wanted both; wishing that he could be knotted, as he tugged at Ephram’s hair, dragging him closer and refusing to let him go.  
  
The growl that spread through Ephram’s chest and rattled his ribcage when the word _daddy_ left Freddie’s lips was a frightening one, animal and uncontrolled. Or at least, it would have frightened anybody but his Freddie, his meltingly sweet and scorchingly sexy husband, his fairy opening up beneath him to any depravity Ephram wanted to visit on his body. “There’s my good boy,” Ephram purred. “My little baby slut, Daddy’s little fuck toy, hmmmm?” Ephram closed his fingers over one of Freddie’s pink nipples, twisting it and digging his nail against the bud of flesh briefly. “You’d do anything to make Daddy happy, right? I know you would. You’ve always been the very best of boys.”  
  
He emphasized this praise by pulling out halfway and then fucking back into Freddie, his long muscles quivering, racehorselike, at the effort it took to draw this out. But Ephram wanted to, for once. He didn’t tend to be too much of a tease, too eager to be glued together with his lover, but right now he wanted to drown himself in Freddie gradually. Savour each encouraging gasp and broken moan that Freddie perfumed the air with and watch greedily as his fairy’s beautiful, muscled, pliant body gave way beneath the force of Ephram’s prick.  
  
And Freddie was obediently begging, telling Ephram all the ways he wanted to be marked and loved and owned, confessing that he was forever waiting for Ephram to stoke his fires. “That’s right, Freddie, honey,” Ephram praised him, licking sweat from Freddie’s face, his chest. “You keep them embers warm for me. You need to be ready for me at all times, baby, you hear me? Once I put my collar on you, there’s no going back. If I call home and tell you to get yourself all slicked up and wait on your belly in bed, you’re gonna do it, ain’t you.” Ephram slowed his already drawn-out thrusts into Freddie’s silken-hot depths, saying again, more darkly, “… _ain’t you_ , Freddie.”  
  
He moved then, pulling out entirely and gathering Freddie up, turning him over and putting him on his hands and knees. “Gonna breed you like this,” he grunted. “I can cum and cum and stay hard still, honey, still keep on fuckin’ you. And you’d love it, wouldn’t you? Goddamn hours spent split open by my cock? You’d be gagging for it till the very end. Cum-hungry lil cockhound.”  
  
Ephram used both hands to hold Freddie open, his reddened hole exposed to the cold air – but not for long. Leaning in with a snarl, Ephram licked his tongue roughly around that poor stretched pucker before pulling back to spit. The sound was loud, obscene and wet, and Ephram leaned back in to start eating Freddie out in earnest, slurping and licking and tongue-fucking like a starving man. And maybe he had been, once upon a time. Now, though … Ephram was less empty than he’d ever been, but his appetite for his lover was forever keen.  
  
For a moment, in that strange way that time could seem to elongate, to roll out and stretch like taffy, in deeply emotional instances of high intensity, Freddie wondered if this was possibly the most selfish thing he’d ever done.  
  
If it was too much to ask for this from Ephram; to need this. If his weakness was going to shift the balance between them in a way that Ephram would come to regret, and resent; if Freddie would lose him because of it.  
  
Because he didn’t want Ephram to think him incapable of strength, and support, when and if his husband needed it. He didn’t want to forfeit his place as one of Ephram’s soft places to fall should he stumble - he just…  
  
He wanted this so desperately… So badly.  
  
And then Ephram growled, deep and primal, the force and the heat of what was reflected in his eyes enough to steal Freddie’s breath, and the fairy was ashamed that he’d allowed himself to second-guess - even for a moment - that this might feel as right to Ephram as it did to him.  
  
Because his witch was a man of conviction, and he would never offer Freddie something that he didn’t want to give. Something he wasn’t sure he could provide.  
  
And _god_ , Freddie loved him for it.  
  
Arching his back and preening under Ephram’s approval, the fairy gasped when his nipple was twisted, and nodded; feeling, in that moment, that there wasn’t any higher honour to aspire to than to be his daddy’s dirty little boy.  
  
And he meant to say something meaningful, to promise that he would indeed do whatever it took to make Ephram happy; to please him - but as Ephram slowed his thrusts, each one deep and deliberate, sending shocks of pleasure coursing through Freddie’s body, despite the constant throbbing burn of not nearly enough lubrication, all he could manage was a ragged, “Yes…”  
  
Rolling his hips into the fucking, his stomach muscles clenching as he gripped his husband tightly - one arm slung around his lover’s neck, while the other came up around Ephram’s back to cling to his shoulder - eager and begging for more, shaking with arousal as Ephram licked up his sweat, Freddie dug for the words to promise to be at Ephram’s beck and call. “Any time… _every_ time… you want me,” he panted, “…as soon as you say the word…”  
  
“You come first,” he mumbled against Ephram’s lips, the slow steady drive of the prick inside him making him whine softly, “Nothing else. You _always_ come first.”  
  
And when Ephram pulled out entirely, just moments later, Freddie let out a sob of protest, before he was manhandled over onto his hands and knees; spread wide but left empty as Ephram told him that this was how he planned to breed him. To spend hours pumping Freddie full of spunk, fucking him wet and messy - and Freddie’s own cock drooled at the thought; picturing himself on exhausted trembling knees, begging to be allowed to cum, while his husband’s creamy white spend dripped from his sweetly abused hole to slick his thighs and his scrotum. To dirty the sheets beneath him.  
  
Freddie’s hole twitched now - aching and loose, but needy - and he hung his head, lost in a fog of desire as he breathed, “God… do it… fuck me so full of your cum I can taste it… please…”  
  
But what he got wasn’t Ephram’s cock - it was his tongue. And at the first electric touch of that wet heat, Freddie let out a low guttural moan of absolute bliss; pushing back like a greedy slut for more.  
  
Ephram pulled away to spit on his hole, the sound and the warm splash making Freddie’s prick slap against his belly as he sucked in a breath, his balls full and heavy between his legs. But his witch didn’t stay away for long. Ephram dove back in, eating Freddie’s ass like it was his last meal, fucking him with his tongue as the fairy trembled and whimpered and gasped his pleasure; and Freddie pushed back again, grinding against Ephram’s face like a whore, his hands white-knuckled where they were fisted in the sheets.  
  
This wasn’t the first time that Ephram had done this with Freddie – there was hardly a spot on either of his lovers’ bodies that he hadn’t tasted and touched – but this was another thing entirely. This was savage and shameless, and Ephram slapped Freddie’s thigh to encourage his fairy’s wanton movements, rocking back against Ephram’s reddened, hungry mouth. “So proud of you, baby,” he said, biting the muscle of Freddie’s ass. “Knowing you need to spread yourself open for Daddy, that you should enjoy anything Daddy uses you for.”  
  
And Ephram, less inclined than Freddie (or perhaps simply less capable; his sex drive matched his husband’s, but he’d never had to refine it into a sophisticated balance the way Freddie had) to ponder the implications of what they did or said in bed, took it that step further. “Is this what they teach you in them fancy schools you keep getting kicked out of? My pretty lil slutboy, you must be hell on em. Ain’t a man alive who could see that whore mouth and round ass and not think about plugging you with his cock one way or another.” Ephram plunged three fingers into Freddie’s soft hole, upping it to four with hardly a minute’s wait; he shoved in to where his palm began, watching raptly as he tugged them out halfway and plunged in again.  
  
“You should see this, honey, oh, you should see how greedy this sweet lil boy cunt is to be fucked. Just about anything’ll do, I bet. I could fuck you with a goddamn baseball bat right now and you’d cry and wail and beg me for it.” Ephram sped up the motion of his hand, groaning harshly, “…could turn you inside out and you wouldn’t even stop me, would you.”  
  
He couldn’t wait any longer. Taking his fingers out, Ephram climbed up onto the bed, covering Freddie’s compact body with his taller frame. His cock was rigid and dark, leaking steadily, and that and Ephram’s residual spit were the only lube that Freddie got. As he sank into his breathtaking fairy’s warm, yielding body, forcing his ass open and churning into his guts, Ephram curved his hands over Freddie’s shoulders and rammed forward with a roar.  
  
The force of it nearly bowled them both over, but Ephram shoved his knees wider apart, the sheets bunching against them as he stabilized them. “Nobody fuckin’ takes it like you, my baby whore, wherever I wanna put my cock you make yourself open, is that what you learned? In the teachers’ offices?” Ephram rocked deep into Freddie before pulling back, biting down at the back of his boy’s neck, holding him firmly. Ephram stopped talking as he pounded into Freddie, his only noises the grunts and growls each time his lower belly slapped up against Freddie’s ass. He could feel Freddie’s hole getting slicker and stretched out, and Ephram shoved his nose against the back of Freddie’s red-tipped, gently pointed ear and rasped, “Gonna beat your fuckhole open so ragged I’ll be able to fit a fist inside you with my cock. My baby boy, my darlin’ boy, Freddie.”  
  
Ephram sucked the lobe of Freddie’s ear into his mouth, changing the rhythm of his thrusts from smooth and continuous to hard, jerking thrusts. “Gotta give my lil boy plenty of attention when he’s home for the holidays, don’t I? Reassure him that he’ll always be special to his Daddy, that no other boy-slut could ever take his place. Not in Daddy’s heart and not on Daddy’s cock.”  
  
Every time the word ‘daddy’ passed Ephram’s lips, Freddie came a little more undone; heat flaring low in his belly, and thrumming through his cock; eager to prove what a good boy he could be.  
  
To prove that he was worthy of Daddy’s time and attention. Worthy of his prick, and his tongue.  
  
And his fingers. God, his fucking _fingers_.  
  
Ephram had pushed three inside of him with no warning, and now they were up to four; the long digits driving into him deep and hard, stretching him wider than a cock ever could. Making him burn for it.  
  
Whimpering and pleading at first - until he’d started pushing back against this onslaught, too. Doing as Daddy said to, and enjoying it. Moaning now, as Ephram’s fingers fucked into him; his wings spread out taut, quivering with the force of each plunge.  
  
“That’s all I learned at those schools…” Freddie gasped out; each word thick on his tongue as he rocked back on Ephram’s hand, “…cock was the only subject I ever got full marks in…”  
  
As Ephram sped up his thrusts though, Freddie lost his capability for words altogether; left with nothing but sobbing grunts as his cheeks flushed red, knowing that Ephram was absolutely right - that no matter what he suggested now, Freddie would let him defile him any way that he saw fit.  
  
Daddy knew best, after all.  
  
The fairy was swaying a little when Ephram finally pulled his fingers free - but he stayed upright. His cock still painfully hard and neglected, precum oozing from the tip, and smeared across his abs, sticky threads dripping down onto the blankets; his hole battered and bruised, but still in desperate need of filling.  
  
Every inch Ephram’s greedy little fucktoy, just like he’d said.  
  
Breathing heavily, Freddie was drifting on a heady wave of obscenity and surrender, thighs parted wide; and when Ephram plunged into him - grabbing him by the shoulders to bury himself to the hilt - he wasn’t ready for it, and he nearly buckled. But Ephram caught him, keeping them where they should be - pressed together; hot slick skin to hot slick skin.  
  
Each rolling thrust of hips, each perfect drag of Ephram’s smooth velvet cock inside him, stoking the fire higher, hotter, brighter. Sweat and precum, and the steady stretching force of his witch’s attention finally easing the way - though they both knew it had long since ceased to matter.  
  
Freddie could smell nothing but sex and feel nothing but Ephram - pounding him, fucking him, loving him - and in that moment, there was nothing else he wanted. No-one else in the world. Just them, just this.  
  
Just Ephram. His praise, and his cock, and his heart.  
  
And Freddie wanted all three. _Needed_ them.  
  
There were no words now; just the low, thick, primordial sounds of fucking - grunting, and keening; harsh panting moans, and aching whines - until Ephram nosed against Freddie’s ear, gritting out another dirty promise at the same time that he underlined again how Freddie belonged to him.  
  
His baby boy. His darling.  
  
Just like Freddie needed to hear.  
  
The fairy’s wings snapped hard when his husband sucked his earlobe into his mouth, and changed the pace of his fucking; delivering short, sharp jabs with his prick that turned Freddie’s bones to gelatin - but ultimately, it was what he said that made Freddie bite his lip and groan.  
  
“God, Daddy, please…” he said brokenly, grunting again as he was fucked into, “…tell me again…”  
  
“Tell you what, angel?” Ephram tucked two fingers into Freddie’s open, panting mouth, dragging his jaw down so the sounds Freddie was making became more voluptuous, more uncontrolled, more wet. He shifted back to the longer strokes, a smooth pistoning into Freddie’s body with his soft hole unable to offer any resistance. “That there ain’t no other boy who could take Daddy’s cock like this, who could submit so prettily? Or maybe that you’re the only sweet lil’ baby could feel so right in Daddy’s arms and fit so good against him.” Ephram took his fingers from Freddie’s mouth, swiping up the wetness, and used it to slick along the upper ridge of one of Freddie’s wings, his blunt, ragged fingernails scraping lightly.  
  
“Or that you’re the only one I could love this much,” Ephram continued, his hand travelling to Freddie’s spine, scratching and rubbing the base of each wing where it joined his fairy’s flesh. “The only one I’d never, never have my fill of. The one who knows me sometimes better than I _ever_ known myself.”  
  
Pulling out of Freddie with a lush, sticky pop, Ephram pushed his husband down on the bed, moving forward on his knees to straddle Freddie’s back. With a low, carnal hum, Ephram curved forward and wrapped one arm around Freddie’s collarbones, his other hand cupping his fairy’s chin and forcing his head back as the witch slid the heavy, rigid weight of his cock against that inviting strip of smooth skin between Freddie’s wings. “Ahhhhhhh,” he groaned, feeling the quivering of the wings bracketing his cock, “oh God, baby, my Freddie, that feels so fuckin’ good. I’m gonna use every goddamn part of you tonight, ain’t no way around it. Not with how sweet you take it all. Daddy loves his lil toy, and you love it, don’t you? I can tell you do. Ain’t no hiding what a slut you are from Daddy, now.”  
  
Ephram’s thumb hooked into Freddie’s mouth and he kissed that corner, pressing his face to Freddie’s as he started to fuck in earnest, the tacky head of his cock stabbing, sticking, and then sliding. Once he’d gotten up a rhythm and his leaking prick had wetted the way, Ephram shifted the angle of his thrust now and again, fucking against the gaps between Freddie’s top and bottom sets of wings.  
  
“My gorgeous baby fairy slut,” he grunted, admiration lacing his voice for all its gruffness. “You make Daddy so proud, you know that? So damn proud. You accomplished so fuckin’ much and you did it all on your own, yes you did, sweetheart, just through your own cleverness and will to survive. Daddy loves that about you, that’s why he gives you his cock.”  
  
Ephram’s voice had been getting more and more husky, and without warning he moved back and shifted his embrace to lift Freddie’s hips high, plunging deep inside him for a few bruising strokes before giving a howl as he emptied his cum into his fairy. But his cock didn’t ease or start to soften, once the pulses of searing spunk stopped. And Ephram started fucking the sloshing mess into Freddie’s ass, growling and snapping his hips. “You ain’t gonna get off with only one load,” he snarled. “Your job ain’t done yet, baby, Daddy’s got more in store for you.”  
  
Freddie drooled around the fingers holding his mouth open, shuddering when Ephram changed his pace and form again; his witch returning to the deep luscious rhythm he’d used before, each stroke hitting Freddie right where it should and sending shiver-shocks of pleasure radiating up his spine. Making him moan louder and more wantonly as he rocked back to meet each roll of his daddy’s hips.  
  
Every word clutching at his heart and squeezing so sweetly that tears sprung to his eyes.  
  
But when Ephram took his hand away - wiping at Freddie’s slick lips and chin to get his fingers wetter - the fairy barely even had time to process the motion; let alone grasp onto a way to properly convey an answer to his husband’s question, before his body was already doing the answering for him.  
  
Still driving into him with those long silky thrusts, Ephram fondled the edge of Freddie’s wing, slicking it and teasing the membrane until the fairy’s vision started to blur, and he let out a whine of overwrought bliss.  
  
‘… _that you’re the only one I could love this much_ …’ Freddie couldn’t help how desperately he wanted that to be true; how badly he wanted to hear it, over and over again. He’d never begrudged sharing Ephram’s heart with Ruby, or his body with anyone else - but still, quietly, shamefully, there was a part of him that longed to be first.  
  
And he groaned as Ephram rubbed at the base of each wing in turn, his nerves sparking with every touch, leaving his cock throbbing that much harder, ignored as it was between his legs. And when Ephram pulled out - the sound lewd and wet - the loss felt like enough to break Freddie’s heart.  
  
Until Ephram pushed him down onto the bed, and slid his cock between the joints of his wings; dragging Freddie’s head up and back, and rutting against him - fucking him - like Freddie had been born solely for his pleasure.  
  
The fairy groaned as Ephram’s wet, sticky cock - thick, and hard, and so hot against his skin - slid up and down his back, each drag across his joints setting off depth charges that pulsed through his wings; and he pulled them up to squeeze his witch tighter, despite their trembling, groaning, “I do… I love it… I love you… I’m yours; your slut, Daddy, always…”  
  
Ephram began to fuck Freddie harder and faster, pressing closer to kiss him, his thumb working its way into Freddie’s panting mouth as he praised him - and Freddie sucked at it as best he could; trying not to bite as Ephram sent waves of aching perfection rolling through him. They shook him down to the bone as he begged for more, each one tugging harder than the last at his prick; the fairy’s hips twitching fruitlessly against the sheets - though he wanted so badly to be good; to wait to be rewarded.  
  
To deserve the pride in Ephram’s voice.  
  
Freddie could hear that Ephram was getting close though; and this time, when his hips were hauled up and his husband’s cock was driven into him, he was ready to take it. Letting let out a groan as Ephram filled him; his witch fucking him with a few brutal plunges before crying out and pumping a hot load of cum into Freddie’s ass.  
  
But Ephram was far from through; and when he began to move again, his cock still thick and hard, fucking all that spunk deeper - the sound of it lewd and filthy - roughly promising that it was only the beginning, Freddie nodded weakly and pushed back, his hole oozing semen around Ephram’s cock.  
  
“Please, love…” he gasped, “Ruin me with it…”  
  
“I will, baby.” Ephram stroked Freddie’s chest, down over his firm belly, wrapping his fist around his fairy’s tender, slippery cock and pulling briskly a few times. “I’ll pull you up by the roots, you hear me? I’ll shake you down from the rafters.” Ephram tugged Freddie upright until he was seated against the witch’s ropy, muscled thighs, the skin between them squelching and thick with spunk as Ephram kept fucking into his husband. He hooked his chin over Freddie’s shoulder, watching avidly as Freddie’s red cock tapped against his belly like it was pleading for attention. Bringing his hands up, Ephram tugged and twisted Freddie’s nipples, a hint of cruelty in the strength of his fingers. “Come on, sweetheart,” he purred, rubbing his bearded chin along Freddie’s oversensitized skin. “Fuck yourself back onto your Daddy’s cock, hmmmm? This is what I bred you for, baby, you gotta fulfill your duty. This is why I love you so much, this is why you’re my favourite lil darlin’.”  
  
Even as he kept up the roll of his hips, Ephram paused, his lips and nose tucked against the curve of Freddie’s neck. “I love you, Freddie,” he said, barely audible. “I’ll make sure everybody knows. I’ll make you king in one of the chambers of my heart. Sweet boy.” Tilting his head down, Ephram pressed his forehead against his fairy’s neck, then wrapped his arms around Freddie, one banding his midsection and the other across his hips.  
  
Moving back on the bed, Freddie still impaled on his immeasurably stiff prick, Ephram stood and brought Freddie’s weight with him. “Oh, little sweetheart, little pretty babyslut, Daddy’s gonna give you a treat now,” he crooned, making his way to the big ensuite bathroom. He turned on all the lights, flooding the small room, and brought them to a stop with Freddie’s hips and belly against the sink counter. “Look at yourself,” Ephram ordered, his voice gentle but expecting to be obeyed. “Look at you, that fuckin’ cockwhore mouth like a rose, like a big busted cherry, honey, God–”  
  
He’d worked himself up, both with the nasty talk and seeing Freddie’s dazed, gentle, beloved face reflected in the mirror with his tight body - trapped under Ephram’s lanky form - fleshed with hard, working muscle, and Ephram gave up talking for a while as he pinned Freddie’s hands to the counter with his own and started fucking him. So hard that Freddie’s hips banged against the counter, so full of need that he was coming inside Freddie again, again, more cum this time and Ephram wouldn’t stop. He was lunging so deep that Freddie was driven to his tiptoes, lifted by the force of it, and Ephram was going mad with each thrust.  
  
That Freddie should be his. That he would be allowed to defile the fairy like this, to use him, to utterly destroy him with this kind of love … especially after what Ephram had seen in his lover’s memory. Freddie knew well what men like Ephram could do to him if they were inclined in that direction. And yet here he was, keening and shuddering as his body accepted each thrust, wings vibrating with need, never trying to pull away from Ephram’s punishing strokes.  
  
Pressing the side of his face against Freddie’s, Ephram caught his fairy’s gaze in the mirror, both of them looking raw and undone, so hot that steam was almost curling from their damp skin. “Daddy’s good lil boy,” Ephram said, and felt a sizzling jolt go through him. Watching Freddie’s face in the mirror, holding his gaze as he said it, was a whole new experience. He didn’t know if he was entirely comfortable with it, but Ephram had always chased the edge when it came to sex, and with Freddie that impulse was transcendent and undeniable.  
  
“Daddy’s always wanted to have you like this,” Ephram said, his voice low and shaking from the audacity of what he was saying. “I knew you was getting fucked every which way in them fancy schools, baby. They let me know. They’d tell me all about it.” He let his eyelids drift low, continuing in a heavy rolling cadence, “And Daddy would reread what they’d sent and fuck into his hand and cum huge loads, thinking bout what it would look like splattered over your face.” He moved Freddie’s hands, cupping both sets over his poor neglected cock. “I always wanted to know what my little boy’s wings would feel like when I was driving my dick so hard into him that I’d smash his ass open the size of my goddamn fist.”  
  
At the first touch of his cock, Freddie sobbed out a desperate broken noise, and bucked into Ephram’s hand; those few hard, fast tugs all but shaking him apart with the desperate ravening want for more. He was already so close… Almost beside himself with need. His balls swollen and heavy and drawn up tight; his prick so engorged that he was sure Ephram could feel the beat of his heart pulsing through it - and he waited, barely breathing, to be given permission to let go.  
  
But the command never came. And so neither did he.  
  
Ephram’s cock still buried deep inside him, the fairy’s prick was abandoned and he was pulled back into his husband’s lap; gasping at the new angle, the further depth, as Ephram continued to fuck him. Driving up into Freddie with short, sharp thrusts - each one striking his prostate hard and fast - and abusing Freddie’s nipples at the same time; teasing and pulling until they were red and sore and hardened by arousal, Freddie’s leaking cock straining against his belly.  
  
But he did as he was told when Ephram instructed him to fuck himself; moaning at the warm gust of his witch’s breath and the burr of his voice, every scrape of Ephram’s beard making his toes curl. He rolled his hips hard, and pushed himself up into a steady bounce, coming down when Ephram would rock up. Grunting and clenching his jaw as he rode him, sweating as his muscles quivered and strained.  
  
And when Ephram murmured that he loved him, the words nearly lost against Freddie’s sweat-slicked skin, the fairy didn’t think he’d ever felt it more.  
  
Ephram’s pure physical strength had never failed to touch something deep and primal in Freddie; always building a fire low in his belly that burned hot and hungry - but now, like this, as his witch played Daddy, the fairy was nearly undone by it. Ephram carried him into the bathroom like it was nothing - the two of them still connected; Freddie’s ass still split on his lover’s cock - and Freddie wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to express exactly what that did to him.  
  
Set down again on rubbery legs, and pressed firmly against the countertop, Ephram held Freddie there, commanding him to look in the mirror - and the fairy obeyed without question. Watching, without shame, as Ephram ravaged him; his pupils blown so wide with supplicating lust that the blue had been all but drowned.  
  
Weak-kneed and shaking, wings spread wide…  
  
Daddy’s little cockslut; hungry for everything he could get.  
  
It was a brutal punishing fuck - Freddie was so sore now; his hole so stretched, so softened and battered, that each pounding thrust of Ephram’s hips made him whine - but he loved it. He invited it - because he knew, without doubt, without question, that his trust in his husband was justified.  
  
He wasn’t so naive as to think that Ephram would never hurt him again in the course of their lives together - but he knew that he would never ever hurt him _this_ way.  
  
The second load of cum that Ephram pumped into Freddie’s ass had made everything wetter, and sloppier; and the fairy pushed back like a whore to take his witch’s prick deeper, relishing the way it felt to be so slicked by his mess-  
  
But when Ephram pressed their faces together, their eyes meeting in the mirror as he spoke - forcing them to acknowledge the depth of this kind of carnality, and their deliberate step over new lines, into new territory - something electric and profound passed between them. And Freddie didn’t look away.  
  
His cheeks flushed scarlet, and he whimpered as his hands were placed over his cock and held there by Ephram’s larger ones, rocking his hips needily in search of friction - but he held his husband’s eyes, his voice ragged when he breathed, “You can have me any way you want me, Daddy…”  
  
“…I just want to be good for you…”  
  
“You are good, Freddie, Daddy’s baby fuckhole, hmmm? Didn’t know if you’d ever amount to anything, but here you are, taking a fuck like it’s the only thing you ever learned to do.” Ephram removed his hands, telling Freddie, “Keep on holding your prick, son. Don’t let your lil cock shoot off, now, that would ruin Daddy’s fun and you wanna make Daddy happy, don’t you?  
  
While he was murmuring all this, Ephram reached for the tube of cinnamon toothpaste he favoured, squeezing a little bead of it onto the tip of his finger. “Hold still, Frederick,” he said sternly, and then inserted the red gel into Freddie’s urethra. “Swallowed it right up,” Ephram said, pleased, and followed the gel with the blunt tip of his pinkie finger. “Try not to squirm. I wanna watch your face as that melts, Freddie, and starts scorching that tender lil piss slit. Don’t worry, my baby, my brave boy….” The menthol and cinnamon would be biting against the thin, sensitive membranes by now, Ephram could tell from the change in how Freddie held his body.  
  
“It won’t hurt long, don’t you worry,” he soothed Freddie, kissing the wet corner of one of his beautiful, dazed, swallowed black eyes and sucking briefly on the thick fringe of eyelashes there. “Just a few seconds of it, then it’ll stop hurting, and then I’ll let you cum. See how generous Daddy can be when you’re a good lil cumdump?”  
  
Despite being deep into this, subterranean deep, Ephram kept a close watch to make sure that nothing he was doing was truly not feeling good for Freddie. He knew his darling didn’t much care for the kinds of harrowing depravity that Ephram was capable of getting up to, but this – what they were doing – was unprecedented. Maybe Freddie was the sort who got off on some carefully curated pain if the mental and emotional stage was properly dressed. Whichever it was, Ephram was more than willing to let Freddie decide when something was getting too much for him.  
  
But that point hadn’t been reached yet. And oh, Ephram was glad. Because then he would have been robbed of the complete, submissive surrender that made his Freddie look like some luscious youth in the throes of martyrdom, holy and profane. He would have missed out on the sounds that Freddie was making, needy and unspooled, unformed, his clever silver-tongued fairy only able to gasp out a phrase here and there. Because Ephram’s thick, unflagging cock drove every other thought from even Freddie’s quick mind.  
  
Reaching down, Ephram cupped Freddie’s heavy sac in his hand, squeezing lightly and rhythmically as he kept pumping into the sticky mess he’d left in Freddie’s ass. “You can cum now, Freddie,” he said. “Like a good little boy. If you shoot it far enough to hit the mirror, Daddy’ll take a taste of your cunt again. Would you like that? Would you, son?”  
  
Freddie flinched slightly when Ephram spoke, unprepared for this next step further, for the shift in tone; the sting of his husband’s words penetrating the thick heavy layers of the fairy’s willing submission to conjure the ghost of a man that had no right to be there.  
  
And the word ‘son’ had the same effect. Taking what was so good - so cathartic, and right - and twisting it, destabilizing it just enough in the moment for shame and confusion to begin to encroach. Even as the fairy pushed back onto the cock inside him.  
  
Because what Freddie wanted was his _Daddy_ \- that strength, that care, that approval - and the evocation of his _actual_ father was just…  
  
No.  
  
He knew though - as much as he could know anything now, overstimulated and aching as he was; moaning breathlessly, helplessly, as Ephram continued to fuck him - that it was a fine line, a razor’s edge, that he was asking Ephram to walk. And he understood that this was important; that it was necessary. That Ephram had to push him this way in order to find his limits. In order to know how far was too far; how much was too much.  
  
But Freddie still couldn’t help the way he jerked when Ephram called him by his full name; or the sudden instinct to shy away from his own reflection because of it.  
  
And the toothpaste - that was just… too hard to separate from other uglier hurts. Freddie didn’t want it, or understand it…  
  
But he trusted Ephram. And he got through it.  
  
Gritting his teeth as hot tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, his muscles straining, Freddie focused on the fucking - deep, and hard, and dirty. On moving with it, and on Ephram’s voice in his ear, soothing him with praise, and kisses, and promises of release.  
  
Because he was still so hard - so desperate - in spite of the pain in his cock; pushed closer and closer by the steady rhythm of Ephram’s prick inside him. Still wanting so badly to please; to be used; to be Daddy’s good boy…  
  
And when his husband’s hand found its way back between his legs, the fairy shuddered, gasping as Ephram squeezed him gently, and finally, finally gave his permission. Promising to use his mouth again if his baby did a good job.  
  
And Freddie - turned completely inside out now; a mess of want and need and submission - came, on command, with a wrenching, guttural sob; his cock swelling and pulsing, as he spattered the mirror in front of them with thick white ropes of spunk.  
  
The force of it leaving him wet-eyed and shaking like a leaf.  
  
It didn’t all sink in right away, intent as Ephram was on gauging the physical aspect of what they were doing, if the ersatz figging was all right or if it was too much for his sweetheart. And when Freddie took it without complaint, Ephram thought maybe it was okay, from the way that Freddie was clenching onto his cock on each thrust; but he soon realized that the noises Freddie made had changed tenor somewhat, less damp and needy than tight and pained, a high whine here and there. He still came, in a beautiful arc of spunk that made Ephram’s mouth water, but it had been a step too much, the witch decided with a little pang of worry.  
  
“Oh, baby,” he murmured, kissing Freddie’s temple, “that was so pretty, you did just what Daddy asked you. I know it hurt, I’m sorry. I never want to take us nowhere that doesn't feel as good for you as for me.” Easing out of Freddie’s ass, Ephram half-carried Freddie back to the bed, laying him down there on his back. “You done so good, so good giving everything Daddy’s wanted from you,” Ephram said, moving so he was on top of his husband to stroke his hair and gently touch and circle the sopping gape of Freddie’s pounded-open ass. “I’m gonna let you rest a moment, okay? You just get your breath back, honey.”  
  
He kissed Freddie’s swollen, bitten mouth – was it him who left those teethmarks, or was it Freddie himself biting down? – and moved down on the bed, spreading his fairy’s muscled thighs apart. Everywhere in Freddie’s groin was streaked and sticky and slick with cum, a crime scene of lust, and Ephram had no hitches sliding his mouth down over that softening, tormented cock.  
  
And God, he tasted good. The bittersalt of it hit Ephram right behind his molars and saliva flooded his mouth, making the sound of his avid sucking loud and obscene. He stuck to slurping and sucking, not minding the dripping mess at all, only wanting to fill his senses with how Freddie tasted and smelled. Fresh, lushly seductive, with a crisp edge to it even as he lay debauched and weak from being used so thoroughly.  
  
Once he’d had his fill of cock, Ephram tilted Freddie’s hips, shoving his long nose below the hang of his scrotum to lap at the shiny pink rim of Freddie’s hole. Still open, trying weakly to close, with trickles of Ephram’s cum leaking incessantly. Ephram didn’t slurp up any of that, adjusting the angle of Freddie’s hips to keep his spend sloshing inside his husband. He groaned in pleasure at the raw, almost sweet taste of that soft place, loving its slickness against his mouth, unable to resist lashing his tongue inside the inviting little cavern.  
  
It was only when Ephram went back to sucking Freddie’s cock that he realized that the tenseness had been in Freddie’s body even before Ephram ventured further into pain than his poor fairy wanted. It had increased with the inclusion of more actual father aspects (cobbled together slipshod from what Ephram had gleaned of Reginald Watts) into their Daddy play. He paused for a moment, aghast somewhat; Ephram hadn’t once thought that his efforts would have been accurate enough to evoke the senior Watts to such a degree that it upset his darling.  
  
Remorsefully, he moved back up, kissing Freddie deeply and tenderly. “I love you more’n anything,” he said, seriously, making sure Freddie was looking at him. “And anything that you are, I’ll love. Okay? I need you to know that, baby, my honey boy. My Freddie.” Adjusting their hips against each other, Ephram slowly pushed his still-rigid cock into Freddie’s body again. There was no resistance. His ass couldn’t offer any, and Ephram fucked rivulets of his cum right back deep into Freddie as he sank in to the hilt.  
  
Because this was important, too; just as important as their foray into testing boundaries and willingness was. After knowing Freddie’s fear that the Trapper memory would make Ephram wary to touch him, the witch thought it was of utmost importance to reaffirm that he wanted his lover every way possible. That his desire for Freddie wasn’t diminished one iota. Holding still to soak in the intimate pleasure of being buried entirely into Freddie’s body, filling him up, claiming him, Ephram said in a low, naked voice, “Freddie. You’re first in my heart.”  
  
Freddie was still trembling slightly, leaning heavily on the counter because he didn’t trust his legs, chest heaving, when Ephram moved closer to kiss his temple; the sharp edge of Reginald’s sneer gone from his voice as he told Freddie how well he’d done, and apologized for the pain he’d inflicted.  
  
And almost immediately, Freddie felt the little twist of shame that had begun in his stomach begin to ease.  
  
His breath hitching as Ephram carefully pulled out, he let himself be taken back to bed - gravity wasting no time in drawing his husband’s warm slippery cum out to further slick his inner thighs - where he was laid down on his back; still the centre of Ephram’s attention, as his witch laid down with him - his husband’s weight warm and heavy as he pressed Freddie into the mattress - stroking and petting him. Promising that Freddie had given him exactly what he’d wanted. And the fairy let a soft noise escape him as he felt Ephram’s fingertips touch lightly at his hole, tracing it with solicitous care; feeling a sudden swell of pride in the evidence of what they’d done.  
  
Wondering if Ephram felt the same. If it excited him to see it. To feel it.  
  
Ephram kissed him as his breath returned, lingering over Freddie’s lips like they were something to be savoured, and then moving on, making his way down between Freddie’s messy thighs. Pushing them apart to put Freddie on display.  
  
And when he closed his mouth over Freddie’s cock - soft, and cum-slick, and so so sensitive - the fairy moaned in an agonized sort of pleasure, reaching down to bury his fingers in Ephram’s sweaty blond hair; each swipe of his witch’s tongue as he licked and sucked Freddie clean, each slurping wet drag of his lips, making Freddie twitch and whine.  
  
But it was when Ephram moved lower still, when his tongue found its way back to Freddie’s well-fucked hole, that Freddie felt the faintest distant stirrings of arousal possible again in the pit of his stomach.  
  
His hips tilted up to keep him full of spunk, Ephram lapped at him gently, dipping his tongue inside the place his cock had plundered so thoroughly; and Freddie let out a little grunting gasp before his husband was gone again - dragging his tongue up over Freddie’s scrotum to lavish its attention on the fairy’s prick a second time; rousing it to a slight thickening, and making Freddie whimper.  
  
Before stopping altogether.  
  
Crawling back up the bed, Ephram gave Freddie a long slow kiss - something deep and achingly tender - looking down at him seriously when he pulled back again; pledging his love with such absolute certainty that it made the fairy’s heart stutter. And then, before Freddie could respond, Ephram was taking him again. Slowly and deliberately; pushing deep as Freddie’s body yielded to him as though it was grateful to have him home.  
  
As though it had missed him.  
  
Freddie gave a little shudder, sucking in a breath as Ephram filled him, then wrapped his legs around his husband’s hips, sliding his arms around him; still nearly undone by how it felt to be loved this way. To be claimed, and held, and kept. But when Ephram spoke next, so raw and open, Freddie just stared up at him, until his eyes flooded and threatened to spill.  
  
He’d never in his life been first in anyone’s heart. He’d never been loved most, or best - or at all, until he’d come to Soapberry Springs - and more than anything, he wanted this to be true. As selfish and awful as he was sure that it made him, he wanted it desperately to be true.  
  
Because it sounded true. It _felt_ true. But there had been a time, not so long ago, when Ephram had been ready to walk away from him, too.  
  
“Do you mean that?” Freddie asked, his voice ragged and breathy, staring up into Ephram’s blue eyes and moving his hand to touch his husband’s cheek, “Because you can’t say it if you don’t. If you’re just saying it because you know I want to hear it…”  
  
“I love you so much, Ephram… Don’t say it if it isn’t true.”  
  
“It’s true. It’s nothin’ but God’s own truth.” Ephram’s answer came immediately, low and scratchy from the force of it. “You’re first, Freddie, and I love you best.” He knew that this was something Freddie longed to hear, with every iota of his affection-starved soul. And while Ephram was devoted equally to his partners, the division of love wasn’t the same. Freddie needed to be the most-loved, something that Ephram was sure that Ruby knew as well – and if Freddie was first in her heart too, Ephram would be perfectly fine with that.  
  
It would be what made the most sense … but it was also what had come about naturally, fated, grown and encouraged by the heartbreaking grateful hope in Freddie’s eyes every time they loved him and told him so.  
  
“I know you wanna hear it,” Ephram said, still fucking into Freddie, smooth and strong. “I know you _need_ to hear it. But honey, I ain’t no liar, not to you, not ever.” He kissed Freddie, wanting his fairy to know that Ephram wasn’t hurt or offended by having to clarify this. He’d do it anytime that Freddie needed it. A lifetime of rejection and being used and abused made it awful shaky ground that Freddie was trying to keep his footing on.  
  
Looking down at Freddie now, the blue of his eyes made silvery with wetness, the swollen plum of his mouth that echoed the swelling that Ephram could feel clenching around his cock, the helplessness where this was concerned, the witch felt a spreading heat in his lower belly. “I loved you from day one. I wanted you bad, I knew that, but I didn’t realize I wanted _all_ of you until the second time. And it’s never changed, baby.”  
  
His rhythm changed, though, angling deeper and harder as Ephram kept his face close to Freddie’s; loathe to move away from where he could taste his lover’s breath, smell the scent of his skin, hear the sweet sounds falling from his lips. “I’m sorry you ain’t been loved the way you deserved, Freddie,” he murmured, feeling incipient orgasm mount from the ache in his hips and balls. “The way you deserved to be cherished all these years. But I got you now. And you ain’t never gonna be no second-best to me, you ain’t never gonna be anything other than adored and fucked and admired and loved for being exactly as you are.”  
  
Ephram pressed his forehead to Freddie’s, a hoarse whine escaping his throat as he went stock-still a moment before he spurted his load into Freddie’s body again, cum being forced out of Freddie’s hole now and making sticky, thick sounds as Ephram kept fucking his husband. Until his cock started to soften, the magic finally sated and depleted.  
  
Slumping down onto Freddie, unmindful of his own weight, Ephram curled against his fairy with long limbs tucking Freddie close. “I love you,” he murmured, nosing against Freddie’s jawline. “You’re lovely and you’re loved and Freddie, you’re real lovable.” He turned his face up, a boyish, happy smile on his lips despite his general post-coital sleepiness. “Angel, you’re easy to love. Anybody who told you otherwise is a fuckin’ cotton-headed fool.”  
  
Freddie moaned softly as Ephram fucked into him; moving with him, rolling his hips to complete the circuit, fluid and perfect, as he parted his lips and kissed Ephram back, murmuring, “I know… I know you wouldn’t lie to me; I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Daddy…”  
  
It was more than he’d ever hoped for - more than he’d ever thought possible - to find himself on the receiving end of that kind of truth, that kind of promise; and just the thought of it, of what it meant, nearly stole Freddie’s breath, his chest aching sweetly. And he listened, intently, to every word his witch said, refusing to allow himself to doubt them.  
  
He would never be second-best to Ephram. Never forgotten, or ignored; never dismissed, or considered only as an after-thought.  
  
This man was _his_ ; and Freddie would _belong_ to him, body and soul, for the rest of his life. However long that happened to be.  
  
They stayed close now, as Ephram fucked him harder and deeper; lips brushing, noses grazing, gazing at each other - and Freddie could feel his husband getting close again; his own cock half hard between their bellies, woken again by the way Ephram moved inside him, but in no need of anything more. Likely, not even capable. And when Ephram spilled for a third time, filling Freddie fuller than he’d even been in his life - baptizing Freddie in his spunk - the sound of those last few thrusts was wet, and rich, and obscenely beautiful to the fairy’s ears.  
  
Foreheads pressed together, everything between them seeming inexpressibly intimate and sacred, Freddie wrapped Ephram tightly in his arms when his witch finally collapsed on top of him; letting his legs down, and kissing the top of Ephram’s head where he lay on Freddie’s chest. Unwilling yet to relinquish him.  
  
And he returned his husband’s smile when he saw it a moment later, leaning into the soft nuzzle of his jaw; Ephram’s now-soft cock slipping from his body, and his sweet words hanging in the air along with the scent of their devotions.  
  
“I love you,” Freddie murmured, “I love you, I love you, I love you….” and he cuddled Ephram close, gently dragging his fingers through his witch’s hair as sleep crept closer to the both of them, until finally he let his eyes drift closed.  
  
His seven days would be over soon - but this… this would last.  
  
Freddie would never ever let it go.


End file.
